


One With Shadows

by jadeandquartz



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Drowning, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Manipulation, Nightmares, Panic, Possession, Psychological Horror, Self-Sacrificial Behavior, Sleep Deprivation, and there is most certainly a happy ending, and whether or not to accept the love and care of others, as there's a fair bit of horror/blood within, but everyone we know and care about makes it through okay, distinctive butchering of Latin adjectives and verb conjugations, general angst/sadness over mortality and one's place in the world, make sure to check the tags for this one!, puppetry, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:34:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28424031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeandquartz/pseuds/jadeandquartz
Summary: It is becoming easier, almost, to adjust to the new way of life.  He has switched to using his left hand to cast the spell, and the effects are creeping further and further up his left arm with each passing day, even if they vanish by the next morning.But that is an understandable price to pay. A reasonable price, if it keeps everyone else safe. It doesn’t matter, really, if he has started to find more and more lacerations from stray waves of shadow each morning as he lies in his untouched bed. It doesn’t matter that the pupils of his eyes, when he gazes into the reflective glass of the captain’s desk, are starting to disappear entirely. Nor that he will sometimes start at the faint feeling of fingers threading around his neck, tracing the line of his cheek.“Praesidio. Praesidio, fortier defendebant, defendebant splendide...”The Rocks family is safe. Any price is worth that.***Lapin Cadbury returns to the living during a storm at sea. The Sugar Plum Fairy has her own twisted web of manipulation to spin, with him at the very center.Written for the Dimension 20 Big Bang 2020!
Relationships: Lapin Cadbury & The House of Rocks, Lapin Cadbury & The Sugar Plum Fairy, Lapin Cadbury & Theobald Gumbar, Lapin Cadbury/Theobald Gumbar
Comments: 52
Kudos: 42
Collections: Dimension 20 Big Bang





	1. Thief of Five Fates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Basic Eldritch Invocation. You can cast Bane once using a warlock spell slot. You can't do so again until you finish a long rest._

Death, Lapin Cadbury decides, is colder than he expected. The sky spins around him in an endless void of darkness. He seems to be free-falling, plummeting from some great height towards some great collision. The hair on his arms is standing up, petrified in terror, as the world flashes in disjointed moments of chaos between one blink and the next.

Surprisingly, for the afterlife, it is... _noisy._ A thunderclap booms out through the void, and the very force of the sound buffets Lapin to one side, the sound vibrations throwing him head over heels into a cloud, his shout of surprise swallowed up by the whistling air. Freezing grey mist surrounds him instantly, chilling him to the bone. If he were not being whipped from place to place at dizzying speeds, he would be tempted to shiver. 

_I do not even get the luxury of a little warmth?_ Lapin thinks idly, somewhere in the back of his mind. _I thought there would at least be flames._

The fall continues. Lapin’s body twists and turns in the wind like a leaf. It seems pointless to resist, so he doesn’t, closing his eyes instead, blocking out the thunderous clouds that tower through the sky on every side of him. 

_Focus._

There is nothing he can do to break his fall, that much is clear. It might be worth a shot to use his mind in the interim. 

Another rumble of thunder is accompanied by a line of lightning far off in the distance to Lapin’s left, like a crack in a pane of glass. Mid-tumble, he catches the briefest glimpse of waves far below, illuminated by the light. 

Something sharp and nauseating is stinging at the lining of his throat. _Salt_ , he realizes. The rough, rhythmic crash of water against water is steadily growing louder, tinged with the sound of shouts and screams and creaking wood. 

Fear settles in Lapin’s chest, familiar and worn. The sounds are the ones that woke him for years after the Ravening War. The weak flailings of people fighting for their lives. _Combat_. 

Lightning splits the sky open in a bolt of burning fire once more. Out of the corner of his eye, Lapin sees a mast far to his left, broken and jagged. It flies a familiar white flag adored with a wedge of cheese, towering out of the waves like a broken bone. 

Events start to lay themselves down within his chest, spiraling out like a fractured mosaic. Between one blink and the next, images etch themselves onto the back of his eyelids, then vanish as quickly as they came. An old stone floor, the molding crumbling to dust. _Blink_ . The ceiling of a cathedral, high and domed, gilded over with golden rays of Bulblight. _Blink_ . A soft little squealing sound, then a loud, wet _crunch_ cutting it short. 

The water is thousands of feet away, the next time Lapin manages to force his eyelids open against the gale-force wind. Then hundreds. Then dozens. 

_What are the words that will save you, precious one?_

In the infinitesimal second between free-fall and impact, the ocean below as wide and gaping as the sky above, Lapin feels his lips move, carving out vibrations that are whipped away through the air. 

_Celeri. Ius gradus._ A familiar incantation. 

The waves wash up to meet him, but a ravenous _boom,_ a thunderclap centered on his outstretched hands, splits the air apart, and - 

He is swaying atop the crow’s nest, the long splintered pole of the mast just inches from his face. 

Immediately, his knees give out, and he topples backwards. There is a faint _crack_ of wood as a hard railing behind his shoulder blades violently halts his fall. The world goes white for a minute, then snaps back crisply into focus. It feels as if he has woken up from a daydream, not fallen - _how_ many feet? Fallen from _where_? 

Directly in front of Lapin, Primsey Coldbottle is collapsed in a shivering heap, her eyes closed and her mouth twitching feebly. Behind her, Stilton Curdeau - her intended betrothed, wasn’t he? - stands, panting, in the crow’s nest. He is holding a long rapier; the point shines with fragments of milk-bottle glass. 

Lapin stares dazedly up at the Dairy Island lord. Stilton’s teeth are stained slightly with blood, his fine clothes ripped and torn from fighting. But at the sight of Lapin, soaked in rain, huddled against the wooden barrier, he stops short in his tracks, the rapier going slack in his hands. 

“You….died,” the Count says, frowning with disdain like a petulant child trying to understand a puzzle. 

Lapin opens his mouth, then closes it. Rain and wind beat ceaselessly at his lips, trying to drown him, battering him mercilessly against the railing. 

As he stares up at Stilton, Princess Jet steps out from behind the mast. 

_She’s alive,_ is Lapin’s first thought, one of such pure and deep-seated relief that all panic and confusion are entirely washed away in the torrential rain. His second thought, as the princess moves, is that she is _dragging_ the shadows behind her. They swirl around her like a cape, obscuring her face like a masquerade mask - save for where her eyes gleam a dangerous purple, a hint of magic guiding her to strike true.

With a fluid motion, Jet’s arm flicks out. An instant later, the Twizzling Blade retracts from Stilton’s throat. As the Count staggers backwards, she reaches one hand behind her head, and a dagger sails squarely into his chest with an ugly _thwack_ of metal hitting bone. Stilton topples over the railing silently, disappearing down into the night. Jet’s lips move, and Lapin sees her whisper something after Stilton as the count falls, some sort of oath, or prayer. 

She pivots towards Primsy, and freezes, her mouth falling open in shock, slackjawed. 

“L-Lapin?” 

On the worn wooden boards between them, the duchess of Coldbottle spasms, and coughs up blood. Lapin moves instinctively, pressing his paw to the splintering glass of her forehead. The poor _child._ She should not have to suffer like this. Politics really are a cruel game to play. 

_“Cantus dulcis, cantus fortis,”_ he says. Primsy shifts, sighs, stabilizes. Purple-plum light sparkles around her body, knitting Stilton’s rapier wound back into a single line of flesh. A jagged scar starts to form. 

As Lapin watches intently, tracking the trail of the sparks, something sharp brushes the outer line of his cheek. Ever so gently. Too gently not to be a weapon. 

_Fuck._ He is on his feet in an instant, whipping around to confront his attacker - 

\- and there is nothing. Just dour grey sheets of rain, and slowly splintering wood. 

Turning dazedly in a circle, Lapin properly takes in the rest of the sea for the first time. Ships tower out of the night like great behemoths, surrounding him and Jet on all sides. All of them, save for the mast he is on, fly House Bleu’s flag, a light blue banner with a slice of pockmarked blue cheese gilding its center. Directly in front of Lapin, in the center of the Bleu fleet, the bright golden wood of a Dairy Island ship is tilted crazily up into the stormy black sky at a pitched angle. Sinking. 

Screams split the air. The sound of metal on metal, and Amethar’s battle roars, drift out of the storm, phantom ghosts about to be new-made. 

_Focus._ He has to act, or someone is going to die, if they are not already dead - unacceptable, _unacceptable_ , he will not let himself accept that. If any of the Rocks family is bold enough to try and _die_ , he will step into the Hungry One’s maw to yank them back by the collar of their shirt. 

_Where are you needed most, brave one?_

The thought settles uneasily on the surface of his mind. _Brave_ has never been a comfortable word. Lapin had known brave men, once, a long time ago, in the Ravening War. Very few of them were still breathing.

_Where are you needed most?_

More insistent that time. And correct. Idle reflection solves nothing. 

Lapin pushes himself up on one hand, making sure to stay between Primsy and the ocean so the Duchess does not accidentally fall to her death. “Princess Jet. Where is the rest of your family?”

“Dad and Ruby and Liam are trying to take over the invading ship,” Jet chokes out, keeping a wary eye on him as she cradles Primsy’s head in her lap. “I came here to save Primsy. ” 

There is a schooner directly alongside the sinking wreckage, Lapin sees now, a healthy serving of extra flags and pennants waving jauntily aloft in the mast. The flagship. Likely Stilton’s. A bolt of lightning explodes in the sky above in white-hot glory, throwing light across the entire battleground. For just a minute, Lapin can see an acrobatic figure high in the rigging of the House Bleu schooner, whirling in a long upwards arc on the end of a rope like a kite placed in control of its own string. _Ruby._

“Do you have a route back to the ship? Or the wreckage?” Lapin asks. Jet shakes her head. 

“I don’t think we’re close enough. Not anymore.”

“Is there anyone else who’s...where is Theo?” It suddenly occurs to Lapin that the knight could have died in the escape from Comida. But - no. _No_. Unacceptable. “Is Sir Theobald with your family?” 

“He followed me.” Jet stands, and carefully slings Primsy’s unconscious body over her right shoulder. Determination in her eyes, she slashes Flickerish upwards, a bright line of metal through the night, and slices down a rope from the rigging. Knotting one end to the railing of the crow’s nest. she quickly ties Flickerish to the other end, lacing the remaining rope through the rapier’s basket hilt. “The rowboat to the right. Someone’s down there with him, a man with a staff.”

Lapin wheels around to see a small rowboat, stuck on a large piece of wreckage. Eighty feet away, perhaps. Maybe more. Still far closer than the great sailing ship. Sir Theobald, his sword whirling through the air, fights back to back with a tall, gaunt man, who is made more from wisps of pink and blue cotton candy than corporeal flesh. Five soldiers surround them, their weapons raised and House Bleu colors smeared across their armor, along with quite a bit of their own blood. 

“Then we head that way, ” Lapin decided. The floor of the crows’ nest cracks further. Both he and Jet stumble, catching one another as the mast sinks closer towards the sea, close enough that the white caps of the hungry waves are now visible. “Princess, after you.” 

“Stay safe,” Jet whispers. He can still see disbelief in her eyes, questions and shock tumbling over themselves to be expressed. But she pushes it away, and raises her voice, whirling the loose rope around her head like a lasso. “Theo!” 

The rope soars out into the night, Flickerish gleaming at the end. Lapin watches Theo decapitate a House Bleu soldier - brutal, efficient - and raise his head at the shout, just in time to snatch the blade out of the air with a gauntleted hand. Lapin winces instinctively - _how many instincts did he go against just to do that? -_ but Theo stabs the blade down into the wood of the rowboat. The man fighting next to him does not even bother to watch. Instead, he whirls his pink-striped staff around his head, sending three soldiers flying backwards to their deaths in the hungry ocean waves. 

Jet flicks a dagger from her sleeve, its jeweled purple sheath still on, and grasps it in the palms of both her hands. With a grunt of effort, the princess mounts the railing, Primsy still slung awkwardly over her shoulder. She slides down the length of rope, a few stray sparks flying upwards from the friction against the metal, and lands in a bruised but breathing heap of limbs, right next to Sir Theobald. 

Armor gleams bright blue to Jet’s left, moving closer to her body. Lapin does not think, simply points a finger and whispers the incantation for eldritch blast, feeling the cantrip billow out from his hands, more powerfully than ever before. One moment, a House Bleu soldier has slid past Theo, and is moving to attack the princess. The next, Lapin’s blast knocks him backwards fifteen feet, right over the edge of the rowboat to drown with the rest of his battalion. 

_How to get off this crow’s nest?_

That is the real question, it seems. Jet seemed perfectly content ziplining haphazardly down the rope, and Lapin has always been good with daggers. But he has a spell slot left, and it has been more than a few decades since he was reliant on his roguish skills from childhood. Thunderstepping across to the rowboat is a _far_ more reasonable option than attempting to follow the princess’s acrobatics.

Off in the distance, there is a dreadful sucking sound. With a crackling of wood, the Dairy Island wreckage finally sinks below the waves. As the last piece of golden wood blurs down into the depths of the water, Lapin watches the towering House Bleu schooner beside it unfurl a second set of sails. The ship starts to power towards the rowboat - still hundreds and hundreds of feet away, but sailing on a clear intercept course nonetheless.

There is a chance it is not safe, of course. That it is simply more enemies. A chance that Ruby is dead, or that her father and the Count of Freezyburg are drowned- but - that chance is unacceptable. Lapin refuses to engage with the idea.

A _clang,_ from below, a big one - and a shout, as Princess Jet screams Sir Theobald’s name. 

Lapin whips around, much too late. The rowboat is empty of soldiers now - empty of assailants, but empty of Theo too. The cotton candy man, hair soaked and fluffless, stows his staff on his back, staring down at the water to the side of the boat. Princess Jet is leaning so far over the railing that her nose almost touches the water. Her face is contorted in horror. Like the mysterious man, she is also newly soaked in seawater, dripping off the end of her braid. _A wave. A wave washed him overboard -_

Lapin leans over the crows’ nest railing, straining, hoping, desperate to see if the knight is still afloat. After a moment, he catches sight of the faint gold of Theo’s armor below the water, and - _fuck,_ the man is dozens of feet down in the ocean already. And he is continuing to sink. 

_He is drowning, precious one. He is gone._

For the briefest of seconds, despair clenches at Lapin’s heart, wordless and dizzying, crushing it into the cobblestones of a cathedral floor. 

But _drowning_ is not _drowned._ So despair is not yet necessary. _One spell slot left._

It only takes a single movement, one step up onto the railing, to throw himself off the edge of the crow’s nest after Theo. The shock of the fall forces precious air from Lapin’s lungs; wind whistles through his robes as he plummets through the night yet again. The ocean surges up to embrace him the way he robbed it of only minutes before, with a vicious _smack._

All sound cuts out, fading to a muffled whine. The ocean is cold, _horribly_ cold. Lapin’s muscles tense instantly _._ Every part of his body is screaming for him to surface. It is only the thought of Theo’s armor - golden, bright, beautiful, too heavy by far for the waves - that makes him bat at the water, forcing himself further down. Further. Further. 

He wrenches his eyes open, finally, but the world is nothing but a blur of bubbles and blackness. No light penetrates down here, in the midst of the sea. No light, no warmth, no radiance at all -

\- except for the bright glow of Swirlwarden, sinking downwards towards the ocean floor. Lapin’s heart leaps at the sight of Sir Theobald, still strapped to his shield. The knight’s muscles are limp, his head bent down towards his chest, but Lapin can see his legs kicking feebly. _At least there are a few ounces of consciousness still there._

Oxygen bubbles from between Lapin’s lips, fleeing his lungs. He shoves his panic roughly down below his ribs and _swims,_ pushes the water past him with ungainly hands to propel himself forward. It takes an eon, maybe two. Theo is drawing closer so slowly. But closer. Closer still. 

Lapin reaches out, willing his lungs to hold on just a little bit longer. Finally, his fingers wrap around Theo’s wrist, and he grasps at the knight blindly, praying to somebody, _anybody,_ that they are within range of the boat, that they have not drifted too far downwards. His body is starting to feel dangerously light, dangerously warm. Black spots dance in crazed circles in front of his eyes, his vision blurring and warping like a funhouse mirror. 

Even through the blur, he watches Theo groggily glance up at him. The knight’s helmet has come adrift, sinking on its own; his blood flows red into the water from a wide slash across his forehead head. His eyes meet Lapin’s, and widen. Despite the water surrounding them, Lapin sees his mouth open, forming a perfect O of utter surprise. 

No time to decipher the infinite mysteries of the Royal Commander. Lapin grips Theo’s gauntlet even harder; the metal slices open his palm but he ignores the pain. He glances up, desperately locating a solid shadow sitting upon the water. The rowboat, or _any_ boat; somewhere he can take Theo to. Somewhere he’ll be safe. 

_Celeri. Ius gratus,_ Lapin says once more. Water rushes into his mouth at the incantation, fills up his lungs to their very brim - 

An almighty _boom_ of thunder, and he is standing on wooden planks, Theo held up in his arms. He lets the knight fall clumsily to the deck, then collapses on his hands and knees, retches up seawater, coughing and gasping in vain for air. 

A hand hits him on the back. Hard. The last of the saltwater leaves on its own, and Lapin nearly blacks out, but greedily sucks in a mouthful of oxygen instead, rolling over on his back. 

Standing above him, King Amethar of the House of Rocks tilts his head in confusion. His hair is matted with blood, and his armor ties are half-undone, the leather straps snapping loose in the breeze. Past the king, the mast of the schooner, jauntily flying its House Bleu banner, stretches up hundreds of feet into the starless night. Lapin coughs, wondering dimly if the moon is around somewhere or if it took a brief holiday. It certainly doesn’t seem to be visible. But perhaps his vision is just going. Old age and drowning are both good at killing the eyesight, supposedly.

“You _died_ ,” Amethar says, his voice still hoarse from battle. 

“Not _yet_ ,” Lapin replies, instinctively. 

Then the darkness descends to claim him properly, and he faints onto the deck.

  
  



	2. Mire The Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Eldritch Invocation; prerequisite 5th level. You can cast Slow once using a warlock spell slot. You can't do so again until you finish a long rest._

In the dream, he kneels in the center of the Cathedral of St. Arugula, facing the altar. 

The candles have all blown out. The room is dark and empty; wind whistles through the elaborate stonework. Gold glints at the edges of the candelabras and in the settings of the ostentatious stained glass windows. He had so longed to smash those windows, when he was a child. They had them in every Bulbian church across the continent - depictions of martyrs and angels and saints. Glorious suffering. Glorious piety. 

_Suffering and piety are both exceptionally lonely, though._ Lapin stares at the window directly behind the altar - the rich gem-toned image of St. Arugula, burning at the stake for his devotion to the faith. _Neither deserve to be memorialized in glass._

His knees are cold. It takes several minutes for him to snap out of his reverie and look down to find that the hem of his robe is completely soaked through, with...

Dark liquid is creeping along the robe’s plum-purple threads, running in jagged lines up towards his chest. He kneels in a pool of blood, an eerily round circle with no ragged edges. 

Something worse than terror creeps through his mind. The sweet, cold numbness of familiarity. 

“I’ve been here before,” he says hoarsely. 

Fingernails brush gently against his cheek, his neck. Lapin starts, his robe sinking a little further into the bloody liquid. But a little bit of anger - so hard to dredge up - lets him find appropriate words even now, though their bite is less than it was in his younger days. 

He is simply tired. So, so tired. Too tired to fight her. 

“My... _revered_ lady. If this is your way of reminding me you are there...” 

The altar glows. The dank air of the cathedral sizzles, crackling with something stronger than the lightning of any storm. The scent of sugar makes Lapin’s eyes water. 

Floating in the air, purple syrup dripping from the tips of her blackened teeth, the Sugar Plum Fairy slowly unfolds her wings. The myriad of eyes within their folds blink, each slightly out of sync with the next. 

_My dear Lapin. I would never do such a thing. You must be skittish._

“Why have I been here before?” Lapin whispers, staring deep into her shifting face - 

\- and then he is crumpled on the cathedral floor. There is no gap between the two states. One moment, he is steady on his knees. The next, the blood is welling up, flowing over the stones in greater and greater amounts. Some of it splashes into his mouth, metallic and salty. He splutters, trying in vain to push himself up to a sitting position. 

Above him, the Sugar Plum Fairy floats. Her eyes - the two on her face, anyway - are big and black without pupils, shiny like the abdomen of a great spider. 

“ _Help_ me, my lady. Or what the _fuck_ are you good for?” Lapin mumbles, and more blood splashes across his lips. _Where is it all coming from?_

 _Why, you pump it from your own heart, dear one,_ the Fairy says. Her voice is at the timbre of a whisper, but it makes Lapin’s skull hurt, a searing line of pain across his temple, a spiderweb of cracks. _Look down if you do not believe me._

When Lapin glances down numbly at his chest, he is greeted not by robes. Not even by flesh. 

Instead, all that he sees is a wet, writhing _mass_ of exposed muscle and bone. Off-white lattices, ribs and plates and splinters, are wrapped around with wiry strands of pink, braided in long lines running towards his sternum. It is so jarring, seeing his body without fucking _skin,_ that Lapin shouts weakly and scrambles backwards in the blood. The Sugar Plum Fairy’s wings beat once, softly, as she hovers above him. Her head is tilted slightly in curiosity. 

Off to one side of his rib cage, a great red fist-sized shape pulses triple-time. The veins that surround it are all detached from their canals, and liquid drips from their tips, through Lapin’s exposed bones and down onto the cathedral floor. 

Lapin realizes, dimly, that he must be hyperventilating, what with the speed that the organ is beating blood out into the air. The thought barely even registers. The sight of his own damn _heart_ is far too consuming. 

_See?_

The Fairy is in front him now. She reaches out and tilts up his chin with one long fingernail. The edges are sharp and uneven, scratching at his skin. 

_It is strong, Lapin. As are you._

“ _Why_ have I been here before?” Lapin whispers one last time. 

But now, he can see the shadows over the Fairy’s shoulder. Great masses of soldiers and priests are filing into the cathedral, making their ghostly way down the aisle towards him. He can make out two that walk ahead of the pack, their pace sedate and stately. Belizabeth is wreathed in golden robes, her face barely visible beneath a towering headdress. Beside her, dull grey steel glints along the many points of a massive mace. 

_You remember, I am sure!_

The Fairy tilts her head to the side. Two drops of shining purple liquid fall from her eyes, leaving long sugary trails down the stretched skin of her face and the sharp arch of her collarbones. They drip onto Lapin’s palms. 

_You died with the poor boy’s pet curled in your arms._

The world goes white. The memories are too much. Lapin leans forward to rest his forehead in the Sugar Plum Fairy’s hands - she is terrifying and ancient, but at least _present,_ a god that cares enough to take him home despite his blasphemies. 

Instead of connecting with her palms, though, his head passes through the Fairy’s hands as she fades into the air, leaving only purple sparks in her wake. 

Lapin falls into the puddle of his own blood, and does not stop falling for a very long time. 

***

When he finally comes to, he is lying on a desk, the hard wood digging viciously into his back. He blinks at the ceiling, where an oil lamp sways crazily side to side, its bronze chain clinking against the panes of glass that keep the weak candle flame held within. 

“...ah.” 

The sound comes from his left. Gingerly, Lapin turns his head and finds Annabelle Cheddar, sitting with her arms crossed in a chair that has been pushed against the wall. Her eyes are stormy - not angry, but certainly wary. Bandages and a flask of water are placed on the floor next to her, as well as a few lengths of rope. 

She regards him with a raised eyebrow. “You’re finally awake, I see.” 

The memory of the dream crashes into Lapin, so vivid and violent that he squeezes his eyes shut. 

_What if it was…_

No. The idea is unacceptable. But he _has_ to know. 

Lapin sits up gingerly. The robes he is wrapped in are unfamiliar - instead of the heavy gold garments that he is used to, he is wearing cloth dyed a gentle shade of heather, almost supernaturally soft to the touch. Dark black stripes line the sleeves and hem. He parts the robes at the collar, then tentatively presses a hand to his chest. 

His skin is still there, smooth and unbroken. He presses a little harder and is rewarded with the gentle curve of bones. Below that, a slow pulsing, in time with his breathing. Ba- _bum._ Ba- _bum._

“You were out for quite some time there,” Annabelle supplies. She stands and stalks over to him, her boots clicking against the timbers. “Almost a day. It’s late afternoon, in case you’re wondering. The royals and I were attacked last night.” 

“Is…” Lapin licks his lips, tries speaking again when only a squeak comes out. The words are unsteady on his tongue. “Is everyone alive?”

“No.” Annabelle keeps her head bowed as she tersely checks Lapin’s body for wounds, but he hears the catch in her voice nonetheless. “One of my crew perished in the battle. But we’re fortunate that one loss is all we suffered.” 

“And...my charges?”

“Your royal family are all safe, Chancellor,” Annabelle says. “They’re recovering in the captain’s quarters next door." 

“Thank you.” Lapin finally finds his well of politeness, and makes sure to smile at the former heir to the Dairy Island throne. Despite everything, it seems, the instinct to make allies does not switch off after dangerous experiences. “Am I...am I to assume you helped them escape Comida?”

“Well, they stowed away. I didn’t particularly have a choice. And yet, here we are. Comrades in arms. The world’s a funny place these days. ” Annabelle puts the bandages down and thrusts the flask of water into his hands. “Drink.” 

Lapin obeys the order. The lack of salt feels almost _wrong_ , but he forces himself to swallow the entire bottle. 

“Nevertheless. My deepest thanks for their safety, Captain.” 

“The thanks of a dead man. Incredible, truly. You’re a walking miracle, Chancellor. I admit to being a bit... _confused,_ so forgive me if I don’t accept the sentiment just yet.” 

Annabelle strides over to the door, unlocks it and steps out into the hallway, her lips pressed together. “Funnily enough, I believe your royals have some questions for you, on that front. Are you feeling well enough to walk?”

“Quite.” Lapin pushes himself off the desk before she can offer a hand for support. “Please take me to them.” 

He keeps his hand pressed to his chest as he follows Annabelle down the dimly lit hallway, towards the ornate wood door at the far end. The memory of his punctured heart floats before his eyes, disappearing and reappearing with every blink of his eyes. 

*** 

“So. You don’t remember anything between the cathedral and last night” Sir Theobald asks carefully. 

The knight, Lapin knows, is doing what he always does - quietly assisting the Rocks family, nudging them along the right path. To be fair to Theobald, they certainly look like they could use a nudge right about now. Jet is slowly sinking into the plush velvet captain’s chair, directly in front of Lapin. Flecks of seawater and Stilton Curdeau’s blood are still tangled up in her braid. Ruby, bow strapped to her back, perches on the chair’s armrest, her pinkie linked tightly with her sister’s. The Count of Freezyburg, eyes red from weeping, sits crosslegged on the floor, forcefully cleaning his peppermint crossbow, and the king and Sir Theobald both stand against the wood-paneled wall. despite how tired they must be after the battle. 

_They are alive._ Lapin stands in the center of the room, scans the family for injuries, missing limbs, missing friends, but none catch his eye. Relief floods through his body, canceling out the numbness that has been seeping through him for the past ten minutes at Amethar’s terse recounting of what happened in the Cathedral of St. Arugula. 

_I got them out of the cathedral in one piece._

That has to be enough for now. Trauma, terror, nightmares - all of that can be lived with. And they are alive, for now, to live with it. 

_They are safe now. And I will keep them safe forever._

The intensity - the _possessiveness_ \- of the thought shocks him for a moment. 

“Lapin,” Theo prompts him gently. “No memories after your...between the last time we saw you and now?”

“No. I woke up falling through the sky,” Lapin replies. The room sways, just a little bit, but he steadies himself and clears his throat. Everything is _fine_. They have just survived a battle, after all. His body is still in fight-or-flight mode. “I suppose that my return is due to the source of my powers. The magic inherent in Candia, or...some such thing. I cannot think of anything else that makes sense. ” 

“Your...patron brought you back? The fairy?” Ruby supplies. Her fingers drum nervously on the armrest. 

Lapin searches for more details, for words that will clarify his lack of understanding, the frustration of not knowing exactly _what_ is going on with his own body and mind. But the memory of the pool of blood, his heart caged within a matrix of his own bone, makes his skull ache as he tries to dredge it up. The details of the Fairy’s face (faces? had she had multiple?) are starting to blur and blacken in his mind, a piece of paper charring in a flame.

He tries to remember the cathedral - the real event, not the filtered nightmare. 

_Blink._ Belizabeth Brassica’s face, sneering and streaked with sweat, hovering over his, the cathedral dome haloing her head. 

_Blink._ The sickening sight of iron spikes retracting from his shattered chest cavity. 

Something cold and cloying lightly touches Lapin’s shoulder. His hand jerks, drops from his chest where he was still pressing it to the unbroken skin. The tapping of Ruby’s fingertips against soft velvet is loud, suddenly. Unbearably so. 

“Lapin.” 

The voice takes a minute to register. Lapin blinks the chill away, swallows down the phantom pain. There is a hand on his shoulder - but it’s Theo, not anyone else’s, gauntleted fingers now resting on Lapin’s shoulder to steady him. When had Theo moved to be beside him, exactly? 

“Are you all right?” Theo asks, lowering his voice, the question private now, careful and concealed. 

Lapin does not feel particularly all right in any way, but he is alert enough to recognize the shift. _Ah._ Not Theo asking on behalf of the Rocks family; Theo asking on behalf of himself. The Lord Commander must be worried about Lapin’s fitness to protect the royals, in this state. 

_He need not worry._ Best not to think about the cathedral at all, if it will interfere like this. 

“Of course. I just need to rest,” Lapin says shortly, and brushes Sir Theobald’s hand away. “What occurred after all of you left Comida, again?”

***

Figuring out living arrangements on the late Stilton Curdeau’s prize schooner proves to be a little bit tricky. The deck is taken up primarily with the wounded members of Annabelle’s crew. After the royals finally run out of ways to ask him how he is still breathing, Lapin spends the next several hours wandering between the injured sailors, restoring small scraps of health here and there. The magic curls purple around his paws, sparking and smoking as it sinks into wounds and stitches them up. Two people healed. Then three. Then five. Then ten. 

He is so intent on his task that he finds himself, more than once, being stopped by members of the royal family as he goes to heal them too. It is proving hard, shamefully hard, to snap himself out of the daze in which his mind has decided to float.

_I died._

It makes sense, of course, why trying to recollect the event is causing such painful reactions. Dying is typically, by most accounts, a severe form of trauma to experience. It’s also supposed to be a _permanent_ form of trauma, to be fair. A rather final one. _I suppose that’s why there’s not a lot of arcane research on the subject._

Lapin tries, yet again, to grasp at the threads of his memory, as he bends down to press a bandage to the head of the last sailor. But he can feel the images unraveling as he chases them - soft, weak, spongy spots in his mind, patches on a patchwork quilt. The nightmare, in contrast, shines clean and clear in his mind, an image he refuses to look at more concretely. 

_People aren’t supposed to come back to life._

Death had always been one of the few matters he had agreed on, somewhat, with the Bulbian church - though, obviously, for very different reasons. The church had made their formal call on the matter some two decades ago; the final opinion had been written and dissented by Belizabeth Brassica herself. _Bulb curse her name_ . Even if directly performed by a miracle worker, resurrection of any form was questionable. It pulled souls back from the Bulb’s domain, she had written smugly. And _that_ was an act which should never be taken lightly. 

For Lapin, death had always been more of a constant, if desolate, inevitability. There was darkness at the end of the line, one way or another. Afterlives didn’t make logical sense - no evidence for them. _And I prefer to believe in what I can see._

_Is that not antithetical to belief, though?_

The thought is not particularly comforting. 

Lapin finishes tracing magic runes across the bandages, then applies them to the last crew member on the schooner deck. He can feel, rather than see, the plates of her skull fusing back together, where a swinging jib had cracked them apart only hours earlier. The jagged edges of bone melt into one, and the sailor’s breathing stabilizes.

 _I died,_ he thinks, and stares at her chest, rising and falling slowly in a fevered sleep. 

_Death is only a brief prelude..._

“Are you planning to follow the royal family to sleep?” a soft, velvety voice says, _directly_ into Lapin’s left ear. 

Lapin yelps, falling fully backwards onto his tailbone and hitting the wood with a thud. There is a small huff of air - maybe a laugh - from above him. Grimacing, he looks up to meet the eyes of the tall cotton-candy man swathed in brightly colored monk robes who had been fighting alongside Sir Theobald on the tiny rowboat. His hair is a bright pink shock of Candian fluff; his staff is strapped lightly to his back, and he almost seems to hover above the ground. 

“You’re not Annabelle Cheddar,” Lapin replies blankly, his mind apparently having ceased to function for the foreseeable future. 

The man doesn’t quite _smile_ , but the corner of his mouth cracks upwards a little bit, like the slow, ceaseless movement of a tectonic plate. 

“I am Cumulous Rocks, from the Order of the Spinning Star. Have you heard of it?” 

A fragmented memory bubbles up out of the churning ocean of Lapin’s brain. The Archmage Lazuli, stepping into a carriage for a ride to the Jawbreaker mountains, arguing aggressively with Citrina about a secret project. 

“Yes,” he says, after a moment. “I believe I have.” 

Cumulous bends down - ye gods, the man is _frighteningly_ tall - and offers a hand. Reluctantly, Lapin takes it, wincing at the bruise already forming on his lower back. It is surprising that movement does not invoke _further_ pain, though, he thinks hazily. Thunderstepping twice within a minute should have at least broken a couple of his bones.

“I have already brought the royals below deck. They will reside in the rooms next to the captain’s quarters.” Cumulous says gently. “I was intending to escort you to the mess hall directly below, if you are amenable to that location.”

Lapin swallows a retort, something sharp and ornery about not needing a babysitter. _Allies, Always make allies_. Pissing off helpful people is rarely a beneficial skill. 

“That would be...appreciated,” he tells Cumulous instead. “I’d like to be close to the patients, though I fear I am of no further use to them for the moment.” 

Cumulous escorts him down the narrow ship’s staircase that leads from the deck down into the dimly lit mess hall. Makeshift beds have been set up all around the room; cots are strapped to the heavy tables, and hammocks swing haphazardly from the ceiling. Lapin can see Liam and Theo, in one corner, each deposited in a hammock of their own. The Count of Freezyburg is curled up around his crossbow, both arms wrapped around the weapon in a tight hug, and Lapin feels a sharp pang of sympathy for the boy. 

_Has he ever slept without his pet by his side before?_

“Find a place which suits you,” the monk says quietly. “I will be outside the royal rooms for the next four hours, to keep watch.” 

“How did you talk Sir Theobald out of that job?” Lapin mutters. He wasn’t particularly intending for the other man to hear, but Cumulous’s head tilts slightly towards him nonetheless.

“He _did_ try to put up a fight. He passed out from blood loss, though, so I believe I won the argument by default.” Another tectonic fault line cracks the monk’s lips into a faint smile. “But he will be taking over from Captain Cheddar on deck if he awakens in four hours’ time. That job, I could not talk him out of.” 

Lapin is halfway to Theo’s hammock, motes of healing light starting to weave purple streaks around his palm, before he sees the visible bandages across Theo’s arms and chest. Staunching the blood loss. Sealing the wounds. Well enough that magical healing wouldn’t add too much benefit to the man’s condition, much as it is all Lapin wants to do. 

_I thought I had run dry of healing energy on that last sailor,_ he thinks distantly. But the errant thought is banished by a gentle goodbye tap of Cumulous’s staff on his shoulder, as the monk wanders through the door nearby, heading steadily towards the captain’s quarters. 

Lapin forces himself to shamble over to a cot in the center of the room, hoisting himself up onto the table with a grunt of exertion. The cotton below him is soft, smelling of ash and acid. His head sinks into the pillow easily, heavily, and he curls up, clutching his arms across his chest. He tries, desperately, to ignore the tears that spring instinctively to his eyes at the sheer – _comfort_ of it all. 

Having a physical form is _painful._ Did it always hurt this much? Had he simply not noticed, in the gentle march of years that had ushered him into old age, how much it hurt to just _breathe_ from moment to moment? 

_Sleep. Sleep, tired one._

Sleep will solve this, will help him start to – heal. Or understand. It will be easier to understand in the morning. Surely, he hasn’t lived a bad enough life to warrant a _second_ nightmare. _Surely_ he is exhausted enough to be spared that. 

_Shut your eyes and sleep. You need your dreams._

Yes. The thoughts feel like – like good thoughts to listen to. 

Lapin closes his eyes, exasperated at himself, and leaves his tears unwiped, waiting for sleep to come. 

***

Sleep does not come. 

Lapin opens his eyes a few minutes later to a soft hissing sound, tickling at his ears. It dies away as he sits up gingerly, looking around the mess hall. The cotton is still soft beneath him. The room is still filled with exhausted sailors and Dairy Islanders, and – _fuck._ He is still so _unbearably_ tired _._

_Did I manage to get any rest at all?_

He searches for something to give him a measure of the minutes passed. A timekeeping lantern, which hangs from a copper chain near Liam Wilhelmina’s head, is burning brightly. Its wick has not even passed the one-hour line, marked carefully across the waxy white surface with a line of blackened dye. Less than an hour has passed since people began to fall asleep. Twenty minutes, maybe. 

_It’s simply the adrenaline._ It must be. Surviving a battle often robs people of sleep, even if Lapin has never experienced it himself before. Even if no one else on the ship is experiencing it now. 

The hissing comes again. Louder, this time. It is emanating from the direction of the deckwards door. 

Lapin swings his legs off the side of the cot, carefully pulls the blanket back over the pillow, and wraps his strange purple robes tightly around his trembling limbs. The staircase to the deck creaks when he stumbles on the second step, despite his best efforts, and he pushes himself to remember how he used to sneak into houses when he was a child. _Stay to the sides and edges of the stairs. Roll your feet, instead of just placing them down._

He summons a pinch of eldritch energy, and lets it crackle within his fist as he nears the top of the staircase. The hissing has stopped once again. All Lapin can hear behind the door to the deck is the gentle crashing of waves, and with a slow breath in, he turns the knob, pushes the door open and steps outside. 

At first, he sees nothing. The deck is completely empty, filled with the towering shadows of masts and sails. At the stern of the ship, the steering wheel turns idly on its own, its carved wooded knobs drifting from side to side. 

_Annabelle should be on watch._ Lapin searches the deck in vain for a sign of the Dairy captain. _Ships do not steer themselves._

Lapin hurries up the three steps to the steering wheel, a great mass of dark, polished wood. He lets the eldritch blast fizzle out, then summons a radiant flame around his fingers, sweeping it in a semicircle to banish the shadows in the corners of the ship away. 

Instead of receding, the shadows stay right where they are, great masses of darkness clinging to the timbers. It is difficult, almost, to watch, a macabre trick of the eyes. The flame is burning, warming his hand, but it sheds no illumination, changing nothing about the night. 

_Oh, brilliant._ And not another person in sight to help him out, either. With - _whatever_ this is. 

Keeping his eyes fixed on the darkness, Lapin reaches for the wheel. Hopefully, he can steady the ship - or at the very least, stop the wheel from drifting. 

Instead, as his fingers connect with the wood, the shadows _leap_ at him. 

Years of anticipating an assassination - the Bulbian church, typically, has an even fifty-fifty split when it comes to executions and assassinations for those in power - are all that pull Lapin violently to one side. He dodges a tendril of inky darkness, lashing out directly at the center of his head. 

The second tendril comes for his chest an instant later. There is no time to move; he burns a precious spell slot to cast Shield, and the shadow glances away, splitting two spokes off the steering wheel with a vicious _snap_ . It hurts to watch it move, a roiling mass of _nothingness_ that flows like water back onto the ship railing. 

Lapin throws himself back down the steps, his mind racing. 

_A magical attack._ The shadows all across the deck are moving now, he sees, colliding and combining into great, bubbling waves of darkness. He shouts for Cumulous, but the words are drowned out as the hissing snakes up into the air, like the sound of air releasing from a crackling fire. 

Between one breath and the next, the shadows turn from him, surge together, and start to trickle towards the door leading belowdecks. It is a simple matter to get there before them, but their approach is relentless, and Lapin flattens his back against the shut door. 

The darkness rises up into the air, the wave high enough to block out the moon itself. 

_The royal family,_ Lapin thinks dimly. He puts up a hand, hopes to cast Shield, Alarm, _anything_ that will do the work of alerting the rest of the crew to the danger at hand. 

_Please don’t let me fail them again. If you’re even bothering to listen to me anymore -_

The temperature on the deck plummets. It drops in an instant, so fast that frost shards coat the doorknob beneath his fingers. 

On each fingertip of Lapin’s outstretched hand, his skin peels away, flaking off into the night with a _ripping_ sound like a page being torn from a book. Beneath it, exposed bone gleams a sickly yellow-white. Eldritch energy surges, a thousand tiny sparks dance around each fingertip, and lighting the deck up bright as day. 

“ _Praesidio,”_ Lapin’s lips say. He is dimly aware of them moving, of his tongue forming the syllables. Sweet, natural syllables. The incantation feels as familiar as the words of a beloved song. 

“ _Praesidio. Fortier defendebant, defendebant splendide, splendide caritate…”_

The words spiral out, connecting like chain links, each one a part of the next. _It has an almost hymn-like cadence_ , Lapin dizzily notes. His heart is beating double-time in his chest, his bare-boned hand glowing so brightly that he can see nothing on the deck behind it. The door remains shut behind him, no shadows slipping by his feet. 

“... _verum dulcis, dulcis fortis, fortis praesidio. Praesidio, fortier defendebant, defendebant splendide…”_

Lapin speaks and speaks and _speaks,_ until he is croaking out the words through a bone-dry throat. 

He speaks until the words have lost all meaning, until he is too exhausted to even question the spell, the spell he has never cast before. The shadows dance and writhe beyond the brilliant light - but it is working, keeping the shadows at bay. Keeping them from the family. Keeping them _safe -_

“Lapin?” 

Someone carefully wraps their hand around his outstretched one and laces their fingers together. 

Lapin’s fingers slip from the doorknob, now slick with sweat, and he vaguely watches the floor rise up to meet him as he crumples up in his robes, curling in on himself. His heart flutters, a caged bird trying to break free from his chest.

 _And it could._ The memory of the pool of blood rushes back, from the nightmare. 

Or from - not a dream. _Didn’t Keradin smash my ribs in?_

The thought of looking down is terrifying, suddenly. Bone and blood will surely be there, not a healthy chest. 

Hands take him by the shoulders and pull him up against the left-hand wall of the stairwell. Sir Theobald is staring at him, brow furrowed. 

“Lapin. What are you...what are you doing awake?” 

Lapin glances past Theo, towards the rest of the ship. Dawn is rising over the bow. No shadows remain. The only other person on deck is a confused-looking Annabelle Cheddar, fixing a line of rigging and very clearly watching him and Theo with a look of grim concern. 

“What time is it?” he croaks out. The words scorch his throat as he speaks. “What - why are you here?” 

“I came to change watch with Captain Cheddar.” 

“She wasn’t on watch.” Lapin rakes through his brain, remembering Cumulous’s explanation of the rotation. “I heard a noise just a few minutes after I went to sleep, and - I came upstairs. She was not on watch.” 

Theo's eyes flick towards Annabelle. “When I came up, she was on watch at the wheel, I believe - but you were standing right by the door. Have you - _how_ long have you been here?” 

“She wasn’t on watch,” Lapin says dully. 

“I did not _shirk my duty,_ Chancellor,” comes the slightly tart response from beside the mast. Annabelle finally abandons the pretense and strides over, her hat slightly askew. “ I’ve been here the whole time.” 

“Did you see…” Lapin glances down at his hand, and nearly bites through his bottom lip at the sight. The skin is unbroken. No bone is visible; no sign of the burning, searing light. 

“I have seen nothing since I took the wheel.” Annabelle frowns at him. “Only wind and water, Chancellor.” 

“Lapin,” Sir Theobald says steadily. His hands are still on Lapin’s shoulders - not gripping, not pushing, just lightly keeping him in place. The temptation to relax into them flits across Lapin’s mind for a second, and he pushes the Royal Commanders hands away a little violently, strides up back the steps to the steering wheel. 

No shadows skulk in the corners of the ship now. The wheel has all its spokes. The wood gleams, not a single splinter out of place to show from the damage it took. Lapin runs his fingertips along the knobs, feels the gazes of Theo and Annabelle, concerned and confused, burning holes in his bowed head. 

_Was that a dream?_ he finally finds the energy to ask the Sugar Plum Fairy. _Did I sleep after all?_

Predictably, there is no response. 


	3. Aspect of the Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Eldritch Invocation; prerequisite Pact of the Tome feature. You no longer need to sleep and can’t be forced to sleep by any means._

The rest of the day, Lapin attempts to explain the shadows which attacked him aboard the ship. Theo listens patiently, as does Amethar. But the more he talks, the more their eyes cloud with confusion - and more than a little bit of worry. He knows how odd it must sound. He tries to talk with as much confidence and panache as he can, but they are no longer in the courts of Comida, or the pantheon of Bulbian pageantry. They are sailing across the open ocean, running for their lives. He died to save them. He should be dead. He _was._

So the skill of honeying up his tongue, of persuading and convincing till something gets done, feels a little ill-fitting, a bit too out-of-practice. Words stop and start. Frustration creeps in around the edges each time he feels his heart beat a little faster, threatening to betray him. 

Nevertheless, Lapin manages to persuade Theo and Amethar to take first watch the next night aboard the schooner. He stays awake, sitting crosslegged on his cot, for the four hours that they are above deck. 

His nerves are singing, but he passes the time by writing in an old House Bleu notebook that the sailors found in the hold. It proves tricky to recall the words of the litany that spoke to drive the shadows away. Its structure resembles spells he has cast before; he can put together that much. The invocations seem similar to those he casts with his warlock abilities. But _how_ he knows them…that remains a mystery. 

_Some sort of powerful protection spell,_ Lapin thinks, staring blankly at the spiraling words in their carefully sorted columns. _Did the Fairy simply see fit to grant me a boon of some sort?_

The king has to shake Lapin’s shoulder to pull his gaze away from the page. “Uh- Lapin. We’re done with the watch.” 

“And?” Lapin asks dully, blinking at Amethar’s strong, scarred face. The king’s entire frame is tense; the man seems half-broken under the weight of the week’s betrayals. Something cold and painful is always burning behind his eyes whenever Lapin sees him look at Liam or his daughters these days. Perhaps a wish to protect them. Or perhaps just a death wish. The two are not that different, when it comes to the King of Candia. 

“Nothing,” Amethar says curtly. “I...don’t think there’s anything coming tonight. Though, thank you for the warning. Truly. We’ve, uh, put two people on watch from now on, just so we can be prepared in case something comes back -” 

“I would like to be on the watch detail,” Lapin interrupts. 

Behind Amethar, Sir Theobald winces slightly, a quiet denial. Fury, unexpected but strong, floods Lapin’s body from head to toe. _I am strong enough to protect all of you. Dead, undead, or any other way._ “It would ease my mind greatly to have a spellcaster on watch, in the coming days. My king - if you will allow it?” 

Amethar glances back at Sir Theobald. The two men have a brief conversation with just their eyes alone, and Lapin clenches his teeth, keeps his temper in check. He is professional, more than professional enough not to become emotional. The lack of sleep must be getting to him. 

“Starting tomorrow, I’ll add you to the watch schedule,” Amethar finally says, patting him gingerly on the shoulder. “For now….fuck, just try to get some sleep, Lapin. Cumulous is next on watch, and he’s going to take care of it. You’ve been through quite a bit.” 

Barely thirty minutes after Lapin lies down and closes his eyes, he hissing starts again. Weaving its way belowdeck. Calling to him once more.

He leaves the blankets in disarray this time, sneaks up to the deck, where no sign of Cumulous Rocks is to be found. Just a darkened ship. The hissing subsides as he comes on deck, but one glance towards the steering wheel tells him all he needs to know. 

Sitting down in front of the mess hall door, Lapin opens the notebook, closes his eyes, and wills something, anything to happen. _Pool of blood, if we need to go there. Rip me apart. I don’t particularly mind. Just...anything to ensure I can cast that spell again._

When he opens his eyes, there is a neat flap directly beneath the knuckles of his right hand. A half-moon incision in his skin, as clean and cauterized as that of a surgeon’s knife. Teeth line the edges of the gash, small white nubs that snap cheerfully at him. A goddamned _smile._

He bites back bile, and reaches his other hand inside, peels the flap upwards as the teeth gnaw softly on the inserted fingers. Light starts to flood the empty decks of the ship, sending the hissing shadows racing for shelter. 

The skin finally peels away. In place of his five fingers, there are five long sticks of bone, muscle braided in and out of their gaps. The gory mess _glows,_ pulsing in time with his rapidly accelerating heartbeat. It’s horrible to look at. It should _hurt._ But it doesn’t. 

_I suppose when you die, your body doesn’t like to forget it,_ Lapin thinks wildly, a little hysterically. But slowly, the shadows start trickling towards him, and the thought is drowned out as he starts to speak, glancing down at his notebook as he stumbles over the syllables. He focuses on the words. On Amethar and Theo sleeping beneath. On the twin princesses and the Count, who deserve better than to be murdered in the night without so much as a warning. 

“ _Praesidio.”_ His exposed bones gleam, and purple light illuminates the ship. “ _Praesidio, fortier defendebant, defendebant splendide, splendide caritate…”_

***

The next night, Lapin’s watch is scheduled to take place with Amethar. But between one blink and the next, the King of Candia disappears, and shadows, snarling and wild, take his place.

Lapin doesn’t dodge out of the way quite as quickly this time. The shadows score a slash across his shoulder before he manages to throw his hand up, gasping out the beginning of the strange protective litany. A hideous smile gurgles on the back of his hand, blood welling between the cracks of the tiny white teeth. Purple-white magic sears away his skin. His hand burns away to bloody bone, all the way down to the wrist. 

Hours later, Lapin is shaken out of a rigid grip on the steering wheel by Amethar, his face creased in concern as the Bulb rises behind his head. 

His hands are back to normal, as always. They don’t even hurt, though every time he looks at them, he feels as if he is about to choke. But the thin laceration on his shoulder bleeds and bleeds, and he shifts his robes to cover it so that the children won’t have to see. 

***

By the third night, Lapin has accepted that he is no longer sleeping. No longer _able_ to sleep, it seems. _Bulb knows I’ve been trying._ The exhaustion hovers as a constant ache in the back of his brain, but it is almost...comforting. A reminder that at least he is accomplishing something each night. 

By the fourth night, he has stopped shedding tears of despair in the few moments of privacy he snatches during the day. Horror at his own….evolution, whatever it may be, is simply not useful. 

Every night, the skin burns away a little further up his arm, and the smile decorating his hand grows a little wider. Lapin tries not to think too hard about how much worse the spell’s effects might get. 

***

The ship sails on. The royal family, everyone decides, are heading homewards to Candia - likely the only safe place on the continent, since every other country has a plethora of military on high alert. After arriving at Port Syrup, they will travel the castle, and reconvene with the Queen and the forces therein. And from there, try to manage possible impeding war. The thought casts a pallor over the party whenever someone voices it. 

“We can call in my father, if we need to,” Liam says quietly one evening, from where he is tucked in the corner of the captain’s quarters, polishing his crossbow. Lapin has noticed that the Count rarely makes eye contact with anyone anymore. There don’t seem to be many emotions left in the boy, other than a dull, steady flame of grief and anger. “The Mountains of Sweetness might be a good place to retreat to, if troops haven’t made it that far.” 

“We’d have to travel through Cookievale,” Ruby says. “But that’s where Calroy’s from. He’ll be able to guide us safely, I’m sure.” 

Lapin tries to think about Calroy Cruller, to remember how much he trusts or doesn’t trust the man. But his mind comes up blank, and exhaustion throbs rhythmically in his head, so strongly that he has to close his eyes for a minute, leaning back against the desk. When he opens them again, he feels a flash of twisted relief that no one noticed him slip - until he sees Theo staring at him, concern evident. His stomach sinks. 

_Are you all right?_ the knight mouths silently. 

Lapin nods, curtly, and shoulders his way into the conversation. Anything to avoid giving an explanation.

“If the Bulbian church wants to attack, they would gather their forces at Gumdrop Cavern, my lord. It’s the nearest major Candian cathedral outside Dulcington; it would provide an appropriate rallying place. Might I suggest missives sent to them, upon our arrival at Port Cola?”

***

By the fifth night, Lapin abandons the cot in the mess hall entirely, taking up residence in a small storage closet down in the hold of the ship instead. When Cumulous inquires into the change of locations, Lapin smiles and spins out a layered tale about getting better sleep when on his own, and makes sure that he’s placed on the watch for at least three nights in the coming week. 

Later that evening, he sneaks out of the closet, locking the door behind him with a careful cantrip, to make his way above decks yet again. It is becoming easier, almost, to adjust to the new way of life. During the day, he teaches and trains the children, and plans with the royal family as to what to do when they arrive home. During the night, he steadily protects the ship, as more and more parts of his body become bloodied bone to fuel the spell. He has switched to using his left hand to cast the spell, and the effects are creeping further and further up his left arm with each passing day, even if they vanish by the next morning. 

But that is an understandable price to pay. A reasonable price, if it keeps everyone else safe. It doesn’t matter, really, if he has started to find more and more lacerations from stray waves of shadow each morning as he lies in his untouched bed. It doesn’t matter that the pupils of his eyes, when he gazes into the reflective glass of the captain’s desk, are starting to disappear entirely. Nor that he will sometimes start at the faint feeling of fingers threading around his neck, tracing the line of his cheek. 

“ _Praesidio,”_ he finds himself humming under his breath, more and more often. The rhythm is sickening, but Lapin feels whole every time that Jet and Ruby manage to slip belowdecks with a pair of twin giggles and avoid his lessons. Every time that the ghost of a smile flits across Liam’s face when Lapin finds a new seed-based pun to make, or that Lapin passes Amethar and Theo in the night, sleeping soundly, sleeping _well._

“ _Praesidio, Praesidio, fortier defendebant, defendebant splendide.”_

The family is safe. Any price is worth that. 

*** 

“I’m not entirely sure why I should do this, though.” Ruby frowns at the gesture Lapin is demonstrating. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to have it simply be a closed fist, or something?” 

The gesture in question is made up of three interlocked fingers on each hand, which would, ideally, form a set of arcane bars. Or at least, it would, were the user performing the somatic component _correctly,_ which the princess decidedly is not. They have been on the ocean for almost two weeks, and Lapin remembers, not for the first time in recent days, that while he would lay down his life for the twin princesses, there is a reason every other tutor in the palace quit after just a few lessons of attempted teaching. 

_You_ have already _laid down your life,_ his mind reminds him. Lapin shuts the thought out, does his best to ignore the part of him that wants him to remember, properlyremember, the cathedral. 

“A closed fist would theoretically make sense,” he finally says, clearing his throat. “But that type of gesture is more – simple, Princess. This is an enchantment spell. Enchantment spells need precision and complexity, to properly direct the energy.” 

They are standing at the prow of the ship, where the long railings join and swoop upwards to a point. It is the middle of the day; above, the Bulb beats down brightly on the white-and-blue seas below, shining jauntily in a cloudless sky. Ruby, her hair newly chopped short and her acrobat’s outfit sewed up haphazardly by Amethar’s feeble attempts with a needle, sits crosslegged on the steps up to the rudder, twisting and turning a spark of arcane energy between her fingers. Were she a wizard, perhaps, one like Archmage Lazuli, Lapin would already be frozen in place, held by a relatively simple spell. 

“ _Tardum tuam,”_ she intones. Lapin feels the magic tug a little bit at his muscles, then recede cheerfully back into her hands. 

“Synchronize it with the somatic component, Princess.” 

“ _Tardum tuam,”_ Ruby mutters, a little more furiously. But her fingers click together a second too late, and the weave of the magic sputters and dies. 

“ _When_ do I need to synchronize it, exactly, Lapin?” 

“ _Chancellor_ Lapin, please. Start the motion on the second syllable, and conclude it on the third. The verbal should bookend the somatic.” 

“This is at least more interesting than geography ever was,” Ruby grumbles, and wrings out her hands, stretching her wrists back with a sigh. “I will admit, Jet and I aren’t thrilled that you could have been teaching us magic for all those years. Did you ever even consider it?” 

_Of course I did._ At least once a day, if not more – half for his own sake, frankly, to alleviate the bone-deep frustration of teaching students who simply did _not_ want to be taught. But also for the sake of the twins themselves. Lazuli had been learning magic when much younger than either of the girls. And the world was not a fair place anyway; they had deserved a chance to learn how to fight for themselves, if ever necessary. 

“It wasn’t my job, Princess.” Lapin steps back a few feet, pushing the _what-ifs_ firmly away. “Would you care for a demonstration?” 

“ _Please.”_ Ruby sighs and sits back. “I assume I shouldn’t try to resist against it?” 

“Oh, Bulb above, I’m not going to cast it on _you.”_ Lapin shakes his head, scoffs a little at the thought. “You, and _any_ member of the royal family, will never be subjected to magics of that ilk from me. Not while I’m in my right mind, at least. No, I will find…” 

He glances over his shoulder, scans the deck for someone who might be either kind enough or hapless enough to be roped into his lessons. At the other end of the schooner, Annabelle stands at the wheel, watching the Bulb track its long and lazy arc through the sky above. Several sailors mill around, and Theo sits on the steps down to the mess hall, his shoulders hunched over, talking quietly with Amethar. 

A moment later, though, there is a soft _thud_ as Cumulous, swinging down the rigging from the crow’s nest, lands lightly on the planks nearby. His cotton-candy hair is billowing in the breeze and his eyes distant and cloudy, are fixed eternally on some unknown horizon. 

“Cumulous!” Ruby calls from behind him, a laugh clearly evident in her voice as she sees the obvious solution. The monk turns, tilting his head in curiosity at both of them. He resembles a mountain cat, in some ways, Lapin thinks, or a jungle predator. Some sort of leisurely and lethal creature that could take the head off a friend lower down in the food chain. 

“Princess. Chancellor. How may I be of assistance?” 

“Would you mind just standing still?” Lapin says airly, wondering exactly how strong of will the monk _truly_ has. It can’t be _quite_ as much as he claims, that much is for certain. “I’d like to just – demonstrate a minor spell on you, if you don’t mind.” 

“Of course not.” Cumulous pulls his staff from its holster in a smooth motion, and leans against it casually, watching Lapin with something that cannot quite be constituted as a smile. “By all means.” 

“ _Tardum tuam,”_ Lapin intones, and slips his fingers together perfectly, the timing just right from years of careful practice. The magic feels icy and bright in his veins as he tries to freeze Cumulous in place. 

A second later, the spell dissipates harmlessly. Cumulous’s head tilts a fraction of an inch further as he stares unblinkingly at Lapin. 

_Oh, you….smug bastard. All right. I see how it is._ Lapin takes a deep breath, releases it, waits a long minute, then snaps fluidly into the somatic components once again. 

_“Tardum tuam.”_

It takes even less time for the monk to succeed against the second incantation, the connection breaking off abruptly inside Lapin’s mind. From the prow of the ship, Lapin can hear Ruby snicker slightly, and he rolls his eyes in response. _Never try to prove your capability in front of the royals,_ he reminds himself. A lesson he used to be better about. Pride is a silly thing, but he has very little to be proud of other than his magic, anyway. It rarely comes up, these days. 

“May I try, Cumulous?” Ruby chirps. 

“Most certainly, Princess,” the monk replies. Lapin turns to watch as Ruby wrings out her wrists once more, then throws herself into the spell headfirst, like she is in the midst of a particularly tricky trapeze act.

 _“Tardum tuam,”_ she whispers. Cumulous goes stiff, his knuckles tightening on the grip of the staff. His eyes freeze in mid-motion, suddenly becoming unfocused. Ruby whoops in delight. 

“So _that’s_ how it works!” 

Lapin crosses his arms and glares at the monk of the Order of the Spinning Star. _Surely it can’t have been that simple. He must have…._

Cumulous’s eyes move, ever so slightly, to track Ruby as she does a tiny spin of victory. Lapin huffs inside, his suspicions confirmed. _He’s pretending. Of course he is._

But the princess’s joy is palpable, her smile a wide and rare thing as she runs to greet Liam, who, ascending from below the decks with his crossbow in tow for yet another round of target practice. It isn’t a point worth pushing. The children must learn to fight, for their own sakes, but they are still children. Bulb knows war will take enough joy from them in the months to come. 

“Very well done, Princess Ruby,” Lapin calls out, tapping Cumulous lightly on the shoulder as he walks past him. “That will be all for today. Enjoy your time with your cousin.”

The monk dutifully unfreezes from the fake restraints of the spell. Lapin catches the hint of a sly prankster’s smile, and makes a note to ensure that Jet talks to Cumulous more. The two share some of the same spirit, it seems. 

As he heads below deck, leaving the children behind, the world grows eerily quiet. Lapin stops halfway down the steps and presses one hand against the wall. He looks at the skin warily. No toothy smile decorates it yet, but...it is always a possibility. 

_My lady?_ he thinks, though he is resigned to the echoing lack of response. It is not as if the Sugar Plum Fairy has ever felt like being particularly fucking helpful, even back when the largest threats were the stuffed scarecrows the princesses left behind in his classroom. She rarely communicated outside of her stone circle even then. It should not feel like such a _betrayal_ that she refuses to speak to him, even now. She is not his friend, no matter how he has felt more and more inclined to - _bless_ her, over the past weeks, for the power that is keeping the Rocks family alive through each nighttime attack. She is a being with her own designs. Too busy to deign to the likes of him. 

But to his surprise, her voice comes back after a moment. The words are honey-sweet, and glitter like a shard of glass.

_Be proud, Chancellor. It will not hurt you! They would not have survived without you. You know this._

The words echo against the walls of the mess hall. Lapin glances at the sailors who are preparing dinner on the far side of the room, but none so much as lift their head. Just him, then, as always. _Surely the Fairy has other acolytes? I am_ far _from her most effective servant, rebellious as I am._

 _On the contrary, Lapin!_ the Sugar Plum Fairy says. _You are the most effective mortal I have ever met._

Somewhere deep in Lapin’s chest, a little flicker of unease stirs at the response. 

_You have already died once._ The Fairy lilts through the words, half-singing them some syllables. _What greater service could anyone show me? What greater devotion?_

Amethar is standing in the center of the room, Lapin notices suddenly. The king is staring up at him, where he has stopped dead halfway down the stairs, listening to his Patron. 

“Uh...Chancellor? Are you well?” 

“Just fine, my king.” Lapin forces out a smile. “Simply...ruminating.” 

_I feel the need to clarify, my lady,_ he finally lets himself respond, rubbing at his hand. The skin is still smooth and untouched, the bones so precariously close to the surface. _You were not the one I died for. And, quite frankly? You were not in my thoughts as I made that choice._

Laughter echoes off the walls, the sound of a thousand tinkling silver bells colliding at the base of a cliff. Lapin is dully surprised that the force of the sound doesn’t send the cutlery of the kitchen flying through the air; that Amethar, his brow furrowed, is still standing, alive, intact. 

_Of course, precious one,_ the Sugar Plum Fairy says lovingly. _But I have been in your thoughts ever since._

Something drips onto Lapin’s foot. He glances down to see the edge of his purple robes stained with a tiny, perfect red circle of blood. 

The room suddenly feels very, very cold. 

“ _Lapin,”_ Amethar says, and steps forward, snapping his fingers brusquely in front of his face. “Your eyes rolled back for a moment there. Are you going to -” 

Between one blink and the next, the drop of blood is gone. 

Lapin presses his palm to his chest and searches for a heartbeat. It takes longer than he would have liked for one to start up again, pulsing and steady, inexorable as the grave. 

“With all due respect, I am _fine,_ my king,” Lapin says, and ducks under Amethar’s arm. The breach in etiquette and respect stings at his instincts, even as his mind screams for him to _run._ “I was just heading back to my quarters for a brief rest. I will see you at dinner.” 

Amethar says something after him, loudly, as Lapin practically sprints down the hallways towards the storage room, but the words are lost in the pounding of his heart. 

_Stupid. Stupid._ His fear is - useless. His fear is not important here. 

_I died, and it took its toll. It’s simply to be expected,_ he thinks dimly, slamming the door to the storage room shut and slumping down in a heap against it. He is already cursing himself for the wasted time. There is so much to do. Magic to teach the princesses and Liam, wars to prepare for, defenses to bolster. 

The terror of remembrance shouldn’t be plaguing him like this. It makes him _useless._ Unable to protect the Rocks, unable to keep them from winding up on that cathedral floor, bleeding out beneath Keradin’s mace. If the Bulbian church gets to anyone from the House of Rocks - hell, even _Cumulous_ , the man is more proudly and openly a heretic than Lapin could ever aspire to be - Belizabeth will drag them back to Comida for public execution, without a shadow of a doubt. 

Fury, just from picturing it, burns away a good bit of Lapin’s creeping exhaustion for the time being. 

_If she even dares, I will cut her head from her shoulders,_ Lapin thinks viciously, already moving towards his journal of protective wards. _I will hurt what she loves beyond imagining, just as she did to me. But she only cares about herself, so I will rip her heart from her ribcage._

The thoughts skim muddily across the surface of his brain. They are vindictive, sweet, with too many teeth. 

But Lapin can’t bring himself to care. 

_The Rocks will be safe forever with me,_ he thinks, over and over again, until it becomes a prayer. 

_Safe forever._

_Safe forever._

***

Lapin is sitting crosslegged on the cot sometime around two in the morning, feverishly analyzing his journal, when there is a careful knock on the storage room door. He stares curiously at the wood, trying to pick apart the sound, trusting he’ll hear it again if it’s important enough. It was a clank, not a thump – so a metal gauntlet of some sort, worn by someone willing to have their armor on past two AM. Amethar or Sir Theobald. One or the other. If the knock was even real. 

_Clank._

Real enough, then. 

Lapin carefully eases a dagger out from his lavender sleeves, just in case, slipping it below his pillow. Then he stands, steps over his disused blankets, and eases open the heavy iron bolt he fit onto the door a few days ago, lets it swing open just a crack. 

Sure enough, Sir Theobald stands in the narrow passageway, swaying slightly with the movement of the ship as a particularly large wave sends one of the overhead lamps swinging directly towards his head. Instinctively, he puts up a gauntleted hand to stop it in its tracks. Lapin winces as the fragile glass surrounding the candle cracks a little bit. 

“I assume you didn’t come to get a midnight snack from the galleys,” Lapin says bluntly, only really processing the tone of his own words as they echo off the hallway walls a few seconds later. “What do you want?” 

“I think I need to talk to you,” the Lord Commander responds. His voice is surprisingly low, a little – remorseful, maybe, as if he’s been talking for many hours already, and would like nothing more than to stop. 

Lapin automatically lets his eyes scan the man’s injuries, checking to see if there’s anything drastically wrong. There aren’t many wounds still visibly open along the lines of his armor, and the ones that are there have been stitched up several times over, the scar tissue looking healthy as can be. “You’re not hurt.” 

“I didn’t realize I needed to be hurt to come talk to you,” Sir Theobald says, and takes a step into the doorway, out of the way of the swinging lamp. “May I – come in? If you – I mean, I don’t _have_ to, I just...didn’t want to have a conversation in the hallway. It feels rude. Disrespectful to you.” 

“Well, you’re already _in,_ so I suppose you might as well.” Lapin moves to the side and retreats back to his cot, bending down to pick up the journal and carefully slip it beneath his pillow. He can feel Theo’s eyes burning into the back of his head, and another wave of sleepiness washes over him, the current trying to drag him down into the cot. Should he sit? No. Better to stay standing, not to cede any ground. The Lord Commander is just so damn _tall._ It would just be unfair to give him more height with which to intimidate _,_ at this point.

Sir Theobald carefully shuts the door behind him with a _click,_ his expression unreadable. Not bolting it, Lapin notes, which is – an interesting choice, a lost measure of tactical safety. Or maybe it’s meant as a reassurance. 

_You should take the dagger as well as the journal,_ a thought says sweetly, lovingly, sticking itself to the surface of his mind. _Just to be careful._

Lapin feels his fingers twitch towards the smooth, metallic safety of the dagger handle below the pillow. An instinctive response, but– no. _This is Theo._ A dagger couldn’t kill the man – fuck, a whole _army_ probably couldn’t, let alone a heretic lacking two weeks of sleep. 

The downside of leaving the dagger be, sadly, is that Sir Theobald has clearly noticed it by the time that Lapin steps away from the cot. _No matter._ The knight will surely understand the need for protection. 

Lapin settles for leaning against the opposite room of the wall from The Lord Commander, an act which somehow makes the tension in the room even _more_ awful. The knight stands rigidly near the door, and there is a silence of at least a minute while Lapin waits for him to break first. _I refuse to be the one to initiate – to initiate whatever this is._

“You haven’t been sleeping,” Sir Theobald says finally. 

Lapin cannot stop himself from a tiny little laugh at the _blindingly_ simple statement. “It has been proving hard, I have to admit. Why does this matter to you? You’re robbing yourself of sleep to tell me so.” 

“I needed to –“ Sir Theobald's jaw works. After a moment, the knight starts carefully fiddling with the strings of his gauntlets, ripping his eyes away from Lapin as if the eye contact burns. Some small, awful part of Lapin is, admittedly, a little offended. “I wanted to talk to you when no one else was around. I had been – under the impression that you are awake at this hour, typically, so I felt I would only be inconveniencing myself.” 

_Well, you thought wrong._

Lapin winces at his own thought, uncharacteristically harsh, and searches for other words. _Kinder_ words. All this anger comes from nowhere and gets him nowhere. Indulging it is _pointless._

“Are you attempting to play doctor to me, Sir Theobald?” he says instead. “I assure you, I have the ability to heal myself much more than you do.” 

“No – I’m not..." The knight takes a slow breath in through his nose. “Both Amethar and I are starting to grow – concerned about you. The princesses too, I think, though we of course have not been expressing this overtly to them. But they say they’ve heard you at night. Muttering away on the deck until the Bulb rises again. You’re handling your - _exhaustion_ \- quietly. _Too_ quietly. You’re clearly suffering, and you haven’t said a word to ask for help.”

The memory of the awful, bubbling waves of shadow, reaching down to slice him to ribbons, surges up into Lapin’s muscles, locking them in place as rigidly as iron bands. 

“And what about this concerns you, Commander?” 

“ _Why_ have you not been sleeping?” Theo adamantly refuses to look up, yanking at the tough lengths of leather as if his life depends on their unlacing. “Why do you need to cast spells at night, especially without consulting us?” 

“They do not concern you. They are merely rituals for safe travel.” 

“They sound much more dire than _rituals.”_ Sir Theobald finally fully unlaces the right gauntlet and starts, aggressively, on the left, letting the piece of armor clatter carelessly to the storage room floor. “You need to tell us why you’re doing up there, and why you haven’t collapsed _long_ before now.” 

“I am _protecting_ you.” Lapin intensifies his gaze on the knight, willing him to look up, to at least grant him the courtesy of eye contact. Surely, they are not dire enough enemies for him to be denied that much. “I have discovered a persistent threat to our travels, but I do not believe any of you are able to perceive it but me, and I doubt you could do anything of worth against it, anyway. So I am protecting you. And I suppose that coming back from the dead has made naptime a little low on my priority list.” 

Sir Theobald pulls the leather so hard that Lapin sees its fibers start to twist, then hears the sharp snap as a lace breaks in half. The storage room, normally small and somewhat claustrophobic, seems so wide all of a sudden. An ocean. An expanse of land Lapin doesn’t even know how to cross. 

“So you think that we are…useless against your problems, Lapin _.”_

“I do not mean to imply –”

“But you _do_ imply, nonetheless.” 

“Listen.” Lapin’s head throbs in time with the candle flame beside his cot. “Would it help if I explained, _again,_ what happens every night?” 

“It would certainly be overdue _.”_

“All right. All right.” Lapin’s legs finally, traitorously give out. He lets himself slide down the wall a little ways, blessedly being caught by a pile of oiled rope that is coiled up in the corner of the storage room. A makeshift seat. Thank god for a little dignity. “I can make a brief illusion of the threat, if you wish. I will also provide parameters, though my attempts at measurements have been less than satisfactory –“ 

“Lapin,” Theo says, and takes a step towards him, shedding the second gauntlet and tucking it into his pocket. The room narrows to the Lord Commander and nothing else. “I meant – what happens every night when you try to go to sleep. Or...what visions are haunting you, to make you look so scared all the time. Start with that. Please.” 

It’s interesting, Lapin notes, that when Sir Theobald finally looks at him – properly looks at him, for what must be the first time in _weeks,_ come to think of it– the knight’s eyes are bloodshot, and his eyelids droop. 

_He hasn’t been sleeping either. Not as bad off as I’ve been. But not well off, either._

It cannot be the same cause, though. No matter who is on deck before Lapin sees the shadows, every night, he winds up alone as soon as their onslaught commences. This is his battle and his battle alone, it seems. Theo would have reported if he had seen any threats of his own. 

_So what else is there to keep him up at night?_

Perhaps it is the exhaustion catching up with him, perhaps the spot of blood and the Fairy’s cruel words, perhaps the twist at the corner of Sir Theobald’s mouth - but Lapin leans his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. 

“When I fainted after the battle with House Bleu,” he mutters, “I found myself back in Comdia. I was kneeling in a pool of my own blood, and the Sugar Plum Fairy was hovering in front of the altar…”

***

“And you don’t have…any solid recollection of those last few moments in the cathedral. The real ones,” Sir Theobald finally says, the words like stones, heavy in his mouth. 

“Only fragments. And it hurts when I try to remember. ” Lapin runs through the grim, brief list in his mind for the dozenth time in the past half hour. The dream of the Sugar Plum Fairy and the pool of his own blood is crystal clear. Conversely, any recollection of the trial and subsequent battle is shrouded in grey exhaustion, and fuzzy around the edges. “You and the king gave me the general details the first day after I...returned. As I’m sure you understand, the princesses and Liam are not particularly inclined to talk about it, and I refuse to ask them to elaborate.” 

“They’ve been through a very rough month.” 

Lapin cannot help but chuckle at that, a dry, mirthless sound that makes the knght shift uncomfortably beside him on the pile of rope. “That is _one_ way to describe it, Sir Theobald.” 

“What, if I may inquire, is the _last_ thing you remember doing? The last thing you fully remember?” 

_What a good question._

Folding the corners of the page back and forth, Lapin stares at the dark brown wallpaper of the storage room, flickering with candlelight. He concentrates, trying to walk through the last day. _His_ last day, the last proper one. Before time became the void that it now floats in. 

Liam’s trial – that was the big central point, that was what had been occupying his brain and his heart, so much more than anything else. The poor fucking Count of Freezyburg, so young, too young to be chewed up and digested by the Bulbian church and their _scriptures._ But then Amethar had gone up to testify - and Belizabeth had commanded the royal family’s arrest, glee etched viciously into her face. 

“I enchanted you, so you could get the rest of them out,” he says finally, still staring at the wallpaper. He wonders, idly, if Stilton Curdeau had even ever bothered to set foot in this room, or if it had been unseen by his eyes, just a menial place of work for lesser folks. “And then I stepped in front of Liam. He was going to die, I knew that much for sure. That was the last thing I knew, until I was – falling.” 

Theo lets out a heavy sight. “If it helps, I have nightmares about it.” 

The flame flickers, violently. Lapin should not be surprised, but somehow he is, enough that it takes him a minute to decide on his response. “About – which part, specifically, Lord Commander?” 

“Every part, frankly. I think they’re on rote.” Restless, Sir Theobald stands and starts to pace around the room. Lapin considers asking him to avoid the cot, but then the knight tramples right over it with one massive armored boot, then the second, and the cause is lost as soon as it arrives. “I do, though, remember the feeling of your magic – lifting me up. I think that was when I knew at least one of us was going to have to stay behind, between you and me. I just didn’t know who yet. Only that it was dire.” 

_So you_ are _having trouble sleeping, Sir Theobald._

It shouldn’t be comforting, truly it shouldn’t, but Lapin feels a little bit of peace at their similarity nonetheless. 

“And you don’t happen to know any more than me, I assume?” he asks. “About how I could have - had my chest shattered, and yet still be sitting here, talking to you.” 

“Lazuli was a brilliant mentor, but even she tended to stay well away from the topic of resurrection and reviving the dead,” Theo says. “I suspect she would have felt differently, had she survived the rest of the Rocks sisters. But no. She never taught me about magic like that. I doubt she _knew_ magic like that.” 

Lapin cannot help but smile faintly at the memory of the Archmage. A brilliant woman, with an odd fondness for tea. And a blunt form of kindness. One that manifested itself in distant gazes and self-sacrifices. Theo had certainly inherited all of those traits from his mentor.

“When did you know, out of curiosity?” he asks Theo. _Sir_ Theobald; that is the proper form of address for the knight. The exhaustion really must be getting to him. 

“Know what?” 

“That I was not...of the Bulbian persuasion.” 

Theo laughs, pacing over the cot yet again. “Oh, is _that_ what we’re calling heresy nowadays?” 

“Forgive me if two decades of practice at being covert about my allegiances have not worn off in a few weeks, Lord Commander.” 

“No, I understand. And I...have always respected your talents at navigating court,” Sir Theobald says, rubbing the back of his head as he absentmindedly crushes the pillow below his boots. “Though I do not believe I acknowledged that much to myself until the past few weeks. As to your...your deal with the Sugar Plum Fairy? You are good. _Very_ good. But I have spent more time around you than most of the Candian court, in the years since the Ravening War. When danger has threatened the royal family, your practicality tends to override your subtlety. As it should. I have suspected that you were a heretic for the better part of the past _decade_ , Chancellor.” 

Laughter echoes off the storage room walls, chasing the shadows a bit further into the corners. It takes Lapin a minute to realize that he’s the one laughing. 

But - of _course_ it’s a little funny. Even if darkly so. All those years spent priding himself on his successful acting, when he had been found out long ago. 

“I am truly touched you never said anything, Sir Theobald. I would have thought you’d have appreciated an opportunity to get an advantage over me.” 

“Oh, I would have.” Sir Theobald finally sits down, again, directly in front of Lapin. _Hemming in any avenues of escape from the conversation_ , Lapin notes, through the edges of his laughter. “But that particular topic just didn’t feel fair. I don’t know the context, after all. What could have driven you to bargain with a spirit like that.” 

“I’ll tell you someday,” Lapin says softly, remembering the sharp teeth of the Sugar Plum Fairy, her fingernail drawing blood beneath his chin. “I was much younger, and much more foolish. And I found a book that I really should have let be.” 

“At least it brought you to us,” Sir Theobald says. “That’s...something.” 

“It certainly is.” 

Silence follows. Lapin watches the shadows cast by the candle keenly, keeping a note of their every flicker and shift just in case. He pointedly does not look at Theo; he can feels the knight’s eyes, steady upon him, but is not quite willing to know what they contain. Pity, perhaps. Or compassion. Both emotions feel unbearable, like they will burn Lapin alive from the inside if he has to acknowledge them. 

_I don’t deserve his - pity. I am just barely succeeding at protecting him as it is._

“I was thinking of switching my sleep schedule,” Sir Theobald finally says, a little too loudly. “In light of what you’ve told me about the shadows. Your encounters with them seem to take place in the nighttime alone, correct?”

“I am capable of fighting, Sir Theobald,” Lapin says wearily. “And I do not know if you would even be able to perceive them. I seem to be the only one who -” 

“No. I…understand.” Sir Theobald is audibly gritting his teeth, but the words come out nonetheless. “You have made it clear that one way or another, I will not be helping you. And you have held the threat off so far. I simply thought that...you might wish for some company, in these hours of the morning. If you are so insistent on going to protect us alone.” 

Lapin opens his mouth to respond. Words do not come. 

“I know I would want some company, in your position,” Theo says. Before Lapin even processes his words, the knight stands, grabs the loose gauntlets on the floor, begins to retreat towards the unbarred door. “I could do with some additional looks at our war maps. So if there is ever a night you wish for the presence of an ally...I will be doing battle preparation in the captain’s quarters, from tomorrow night onwards. You’re welcome to stop by.” 

_I should probably say something,_ Lapin thinks dimly, but what the appropriate response to give might be - _why?,_ perhaps, or _how did you know how lonely I have been? -_ is a topic his brain is apparently not capable of deciding. 

“Thank you,” he finally says, a little uncertainty warping the words. “I may take you up on that, Sir Theobald.” 

The door closes behind the knight with a gentle _click._

Lapin spends several minutes staring blankly at the wall, trying very hard to push the warm thoughts burning in his brain down below the comforting grey fog of exhaustion. 

The attempt does not work, though, because the universe is not feeling particularly kind. It is almost a relief when the faint hissing starts to accelerate and he heads up to the deck, loses himself in a different kind of radiance. 


	4. Book of Ancient Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Eldritch Invocation; prerequisite Pact of the Tome feature. You can now inscribe magical rituals in your spellbook._

Lapin tries to resist the urge to take Sir Theobald up on his offer. He truly tries, pushing the thought away as it returns and returns over the course of the preceding day. But the idea is persistent. It invades his history lessons with the children, invades his spellcasting lessons with Ruby, who is still no closer to reliably mastering Hold Person. 

_Company would be...good. It has been a long time since I truly spent time with someone._

So that night, as the Bulb sets, blurring the ocean waves golden-pink, Lapin pulls the journal from beneath his pillow and slips through the halls like a ghost, heading to the captain’s quarters. His knock is met with an absent-minded “ _It’s open!”_ and when he steps into the room, Sir Theobald is, indeed, sitting in front of a myriad of war maps, the battle plans spread haphazardly across the desk. 

“Anything interesting you’re predicting, for an all-out assault on our homeland?” Lapin asks lightly. He shuts the door behind him and sits down against it, his back pressed tight against the wood. 

The knight looks up, his face decidedly neutral at Lapin’s intrusion on his space. “Not yet. I’m trying to figure out exactly where I should be sending troops, if we are able to secure the castle once we arrive.” 

“To alert us if the church or any other members of the Concord move beyond the borders?” 

“Exactly. Though, of course, we could arrive to them already present in Candia. In that case, these plans aren’t particularly helpful.” Theo draws a line down the center of the map, taps Castle Candy with the tip of his pointer finger. “Anything interesting you’re writing in your notebook? I notice it’s been getting rather full.” 

“I am attempting to analyze the litany I find myself reciting every night.” Lapin opens the journal to the latest blank page - distressingly close to the end. _Sir Theobald is right, it seems._ It might become necessary to hunt through the storage crates for another blank book or two, should the voyage continue much longer. “It contains much of the wording of my typical pact spells, but there are complications within the words. Stronger intentions. I want to understand what exactly I am creating each night.” 

“Noble.” Coming from anyone else, the word might feel like an insult, but Sir Theobald says it lightly, without malice lacing the syllables. The knight stays seated, pulling an inkwell over towards him and starting to carefully mark up the battle maps. “Recite out loud, if you need to. It won’t distract me.” 

Lapin finds it hard to focus on the spell, as the hours pass by. Sir Theobald moves occasionally, removing more maps from Stilton Curdeau’s collection and annotating them with careful lines of ink. Other than that, the Lord Commander remains silent, but unlike the previous evening, this silence is...comforting. Calming. 

It hurts, a little, when the hissing sound creeps around the corners of the door. Lapin winces, closes his book reluctantly. “I believe my cue has come, Commander. But...thank you for your time.” 

“Stay safe,” Theo replies softly as Lapin steps into the hallway and closes the door. 

The litany, that night, comes easier to Lapin’s lips. Even the sight of his skin stripping away down to the elbow, bones and muscles dripping with eldritch energy, doesn’t wipe away the small curl at the edges of his mouth. 

_Arrogant, insufferable know-it-all,_ he thinks, not without fondness. _Trying so very hard to save my mind._

***

As it turns out, the need for another journal is not quite as desperate as Lapin might have assumed. 

It takes the better part of two more days - nights spent quietly on the floor of the captain’s quarters, with Theo stoically poring over maps fifteen feet away - but on the morning of the third day, the Candian coastline finally comes into view. The entire royal family crowds onto deck. Lapin’s heart cracks a little bit at the tenseness in Liam’s shoulders, the tears that Princess Jet is valiantly trying to hide. A little bit of rose-red magic crackles at Princess Ruby’s fingertips as her fist clenches. Lapin steps up to the railing between her and Jet, tucking his hands into the fraying sleeves of his robes. 

“It is going to be alright, princesses,” he says softly, keeping his eyes on the purple mountains drawing ever closer, and the darkening tides below the ship that are starting to flow to the mouth of the Cola River. “Either your homeland is safe still, or it will soon be.” 

“I’m ready,” Jet says steadily, fingers tapping on Flickerish’s hilt where it sits sheathed at her side. Ruby doesn’t respond at all. Lapin spares a glance sideways to confirm that her eyes are dim, no hope burning within them in the slightest. 

_The people who hurt them should suffer for it. Tenfold._

The fury, this time, stays with him through the journey into Port Cola. Amethar and Sir Theobald breathe audible sighs of relief at the Candian banners flying brightly in the sky from all the moored ships, and Annabelle Cheddar cracks a smile at the yellow Dairy Island banners among them. The journey to Castle Candy is a blur. Cumulous perches at the front of a nondescript traveling carriage, urging the horses on so fast that Lapin is thrown into Theo more than a few times, their frames rattling together like loose stones in a box. Lapin’s muttered apologies glance off Theo, who simply shakes his head, his mouth pressed into a thin line of worry. 

_It is your enemies who should be worried, Sir Theobald._

Lapin stares out the window of the carriage. The threatening thoughts jangle in his ears but refuse to settle comfortably. 

As they arrive at the castle, Ruby and Jet abandon all pretense, practically leaping out of the carriage as it is still moving and racing to the slowly opening gates. Lapin can see Queen Caramelinda’s stately figure in the distance, stepping out to greet her daughters. He looks over at Amethar, who is slowly shrinking into the corner of the carriage. 

“If you would like some...accompaniment, my king,” Theo offers gently. 

Amethar nods, his face stormy. Lapin remembers, with a twinge of pain, a faint memory - the acrid sting of Belizabeth Brassica’s voice proclaiming the king’s adultery. He falls into line on the other side of the king as they dismount. _Caramelinda will have heard by now,_ he thinks grimly. _She will not be looking forward to this. Neither will he._

The sky is fully dark, nighttime overwhelming the castle. Their journey has, of course, been secret, so there are few people there to recieve the family; only Caramelinda and Lord Cruller stand at the palace gates to greet them. The former looks at her husband over the heads of her daughters, something brittle and broken in her eyes, and eventually pulls him away up the staircase to their private chambers. Calroy, his patterned pyjama pants flamboyant as ever in the chill night air, picks up on the subtext, and ushers Ruby, Jet, and Liam away towards their rooms. 

Lapin is left alone with Sir Theobald, standing in the grand foyer of carved sugar stone and gilded marzipan stairs. The sight is so familiar that it almost banishes the painful ache of sleep deprivation, churning in his stomach. Almost. 

“Are you planning to stay awake tonight?” Sir Theobald finally ventures, as they start to ascend the staircase together. “In case of - the shadows?” 

_I don’t think I_ remember _how to sleep anymore._ Lapin does not voice the thought. 

“I would feel most comfortable with it, yes,” he says instead. “I might...venture to do some research in the library, first.” The words of the nighttime litany remain confusing. Taken separately, each is a fairly simple spell component, but he does not understand what they signify. How they are so much more complex than a simple Shield spell or protection invocation. “I miss the books.”

“I will station myself outside the royal quarters, then. Just in case I can be of some assistance. ” Theo moves to take the left-hand branch of the stairs, heading away from the direction of the royal library. “Come find me whenever you’re ready to keep watch, please.” 

Lapin huffs, inclining his head ever so slightly to signal his assent as the knight clanks away.  
  
 _Ridiculous man._ And kind. And helpful. And benevolent. 

_How is it so easy for him?_ he wonders, and heads up the right-hand staircase. 

***

Stepping through the doors of Castle Candy’s one and only library, books stacked at odd angles on every shimmering marzipan surface, feels like waking up after a very long, very satisfying dream. Lapin stands in the doorway for a solid two minutes, drinking in every gift his eyes are giving him – all the places he has hallowed and revered, over years and years of calling this castle his home. The racks of cartography pages, carefully illuminated. The three small reading nooks, their clear-crystal windows overlooking the castle courtyard. The dusty storage room in the back, its door seemingly decrepit and webbed over from years of disuse. 

The “seemingly” is the key adjective, though, Lapin remembers with a faint grin. Any hostile parties who tried to pick the lock would suddenly forget what, exactly, it was they had been intending to do – potentially forget who they were at _all_ , into the bargain. And gods help anyone who attempted to break the door down. Archmage Lazuli had, reportedly, been _particularly_ stringent in her enchantments on that front. 

_Knowledge is the most precious tool,_ he thinks, and remembers the days he would run between stacks of books in much smaller and less prestigious libraries, hoping for something in them that would save him. 

_Well._ The one book – the most important he had ever found – definitely hadn’t _saved_ him. But it had certainly made his life more interesting. 

_At least it brought you to us,_ Theo’s words echo in his head. 

Lapin pushes the thoughts away, and sets off into the maze of bookshelves determinedly. 

The spell is a protection spell. That doesn’t seem to be in question. The problem he is facing, really, is the final sections of the spell. The part where the litany loops back on itself - where the rhythm matches back up, so that it only makes sense, really, to start it all over again, an unbroken chain he has been repeating each night. 

_Verum dulcis, dulcis fortis, fortis praesidio._ Taken separately, they should be simple base invocations - true sweetness, sweet strength, strong protection, the words of the Candian crest tangled up within the litany. But combined, Lapin has noted, the syllables slur together, link in odd ways in front of his eyes whenever he stares at them for too long on the page. And for the end of a lengthy spell? The capstone, the concluding beats of a protection ritual that has taken at least _two minutes_ to cast each night? 

No. There is clearly a different interpretation to the words when taking as pairs. Or as a full fragment. Hopefully, Lazuli had either heard of the spell or done research into similar linguistic problems. Lapin had never been good at linguistics, back as a young deacon. The history of it all had always come far more easy to him than the technicalities. 

_Perhaps all this is simply the Sugar Plum Fairy mocking my academic expertise,_ Lapin muses, and smiles. 

He slides his fingers along the edges of the dusty locks of the back rooms, drawing the complex arcane syllables of Lazuli’s passcodes. They burn dark purple lines of energy into the dust, almost closer to black than sugar-plum. 

After a long minute, the magic dissipates. Door hinges creak open, and Lapin steps softly into the small room beyond. 

Archmage Lazuli, like any good practitioner of heresy, had understood the importance of two vital things. The first was contingency plans - and, Lapin knows, he is standing right in the midst of one of hers. Specifically, the contingency for if her arcane work got destroyed, whether by enemy hands or by her own. The four walls of the small booth are hung with long blue tapestries that reach from floor to ceiling, the cloth rippling with arcane wards sewn out of emerald thread. Against the back wall, a lovingly polished bookshelf hosts a rainbow of arcane tomes, arranged neatly in alphabetical order. A small lockbox sits at the bookshelf’s feet; when Lapin gets it open after a few more moments of passcodes, it reveals a set of glowing sugar-crystals, each one pulsing with a faint pink light at its center. _Information storage._ Spells bound up in the fractal pattern - notes from Lazuli’s field research, most likely.

The books are probably the place to turn first, though. Lapin steps over to the bookshelf and starts to search. His fingers run across flame-colored tomes filled with hymns to the Holy One, books of Bulbian scripture with ink annotations filling up their margins like piles of dead leaves. He pulls a silver tome off the middle shelf, the words _Spirits of the Sweetening Path_ written down its spine. Then, from the bottom shelf, a small pink book, with the title _Cantus Fortis_ stamped in gold leaf on the cover. 

It would take most other fools a couple hours to thoroughly read the books. But, luckily, years of administering church services for a hollow religion have made Lapin an _exceptionally_ good speed-reader. _Funny, the skills you pick up just to stay afloat._

So he perches on the lockbox lid, his notebook balanced on his knees as he starts to power through the texts. His eyes grow dry from lack of blinking, and he finds himself rubbing them more than once, cursing their ineffectiveness. 

_Spirits of the Sweetening Path_ proves _abominably_ unhelpful, despite the title; it focuses much more on the historical practices of the animistic religion than the actual titular spirits. About halfway through, Lapin switches to only checking chapter titles and summaries, hoping that something useful will turn up. But after the fifth discussion of a dense political treaty, he sighs, then places the book back on the shelf. _So much for history._ Time to move to linguistics. 

_Cantus Fortis_ starts out with a table of contents - always a much better sign. Lapin’s eyes flick down the list until they find the entry marked _Faeries and Fey Folk,_ and he thumbs through the pages impatiently. The first few spirits listed are of no relevance, but then - _perfect._ An entry on the grand Fairy herself. 

The actual listing on the Sugar Plum Fairy is just a few lines long, sparse and mysterious as ever. 

_Sugar Plum Fairy_

_First recorded sighting Y.O.B 533._

_This spirit has been recorded by only a few scholars. She tends to appear as a six-winged figure robed in purple and pink. Often associated with circles of standing stones. Little direct malicious intent has been observed from her; she seems content to speak with mortals only on rare occasions._

But surrounding it, the page contains dozens of fragmentary notes in Lazuli’s handwriting, cramped scrawls of ink from the genius mage. Theories and knowledge on the Fairy. _Perfect._

Lapin rarely entertains the concept of heaven. Bulbian focus on the afterlife feels like a fairly strong indicator that it is just another hoax. But if there is one, hopefully Lazuli Rocks has found her way there by now. _She really was the best of all of us,_ he thinks, feverishly starting to transcribe notes into his own book. _I suppose it only makes sense that we lost her so young. Brave people rarely survive long._

The notes themselves cover multiple topics. One section is on the standing stones. Lazuli’s voice echoes in Lapin’s head as he reads the notes. They are just as terse and to the point as the Archmage herself. _I hesitate to spend too long in the nearby circle in the glade. But usages of the spell Detect Evil and Good seem to set off...effects within the stones. I suspect the attempt at classification causes all the innate pieces of power in the sacred place to reveal themselves._

A second section of notes seems to refer to the physical appearance of the Fairy. _The wings are deliberate. As is the size. She wishes to appear ethereal, and she wishes to appear harmless. There is clearly a greater form behind the concrete one. I suspect it is far less defined. Maybe even partially abstract?_

A third is far more cryptic. Lapin isn’t quite sure what to pull from the words. _The mountains are clearly the home of more storms than one. Or maybe she hasn’t arrived there just yet. They will both be there at the same time, anyway. A great battle will be fought, this much I know._

But the last section of notes, crammed down into the bottom corner of the page, makes Lapin’s heart stop dead in his chest. 

He swallows, staring down at the words. A faint breeze sweeps through the room, and, for a moment, he thinks he hears the distant sound of bells. 

_After extensive divination in the mountains, I have located ancient memories of some of the first worshippers of the Sugar Plum Fairy,_ Lazuli writes. _The effort nearly killed me. Caramelinda has begged me to take a week or two to recover. But the effort of worshipping the Fairy did, in fact, kill her first few acolytes, and I know now where their remains are located. So I will be eschewing my beloved’s request for me to rest, in order to disinter their bodies. It seems they were mostly bone at the time of their deaths anyway, but there may still be traces of necromantic possessives in the marrow that I could examine._

_Old texts that I saw in the visions seemed written in Candian but I am having difficulty deciphering them. I have sent the wording along to the Order of the Spinning Star. Either they will have better luck than I, or they will be able to keep the spell fragments safe in the event of my imminent (possible) (probable) death._

_(Note to self: see if there are any other ways to end the Ravening War. Caramelinda will never forgive you if you miss your anniversary because you have been unduly impaled.)_

_Verum dulcis, fortis praesidio. The words seem to sandwich ‘truth’ and ‘protection’ around ‘dulcis fortis’; Candian royal family motto, specifically. Not too unexpected; it is clear the Fairy has a particular interest in my bloodline. Maybe just a fascination. Eldritch minds are harder to read than mortal ones._

_Taken together, we have “verum dulcis, fortis praesidio” - “verumdulcis” being close to “verundiert,” root word for “rotting sugar” or “sickly sweet,” phrases sourced to instability, illusion, trickery, and betrayal._

_“Fortispraesidio” brings to mind “fortempaedo,” a Candian root word fallen out of use for at least two hundred years. Roughly translated to “puppet,” or “shadow-puppet,”sometimes “shadow-reflection.”_

_More research needed. I shall consult Snickersnack as to linguistics experts in the area._

Lapin traces the dried ink with his fingernail, head spinning. The walls of the room seem to be leaning in, laughing quietly at his sheer _idiocy._

_Rotting sugar. Shadow puppets. Necromantic possessives._

How has it taken him this long to figure out? 

It isn’t particularly a surprise, he realizes. Some part of him was aware, deep below the clouding grey fog, that the shadows had no logical source. They were arcane magic, but not filled with the same deep red fire that glowed behind Cumulous’s eyes when the monk practiced with weapons on the schooner deck. That left the Sweetening Path as a source. That left the _Sugar Plum Fairy_ as a source. 

_Necromantic possessives._

Lapin stares down at his hands. The skin is unbroken. For now. The bones shift as he opens and closes his palms experimentally. 

_How much magic does she already have inside me? How fully has she been able to…_

The thought makes Lapin want to collapse fold in on himself, but he pulls himself together. 

_Knowledge is precious._ He needs to know more. 

He clasps his hands together and mumbles the words for Detect Magic, unspoken for months now. There had been no reason to cast the spell while traveling on the ship. He had never thought to do so. Or perhaps, the thought of doing so had been kept _away_ from his mind. Purposefully. 

_“_ _Magicae. Deprehendere.”_

Lazuli’s secret library room goes grey-toned. The color bleeds out of the tapestries. Instead, the artifacts - most of the books, the information crystals, all of the embroidery - glow bright neon tones, colors indicating the enchantments within. Divination. Abjuration. Conjuration. All the protective and creative ways one might expect a wizard to protect their space. 

Lapin ignores all of it. All he can really see are the thick, purplish-black lines of magic that writhe and leap below the skin of his arms, extending almost all the way up to his shoulders. They look like long, living bruises under the eye of the spell; snake-like and sibilant, sickening to watch. Pools of necromantic magic, mixed with fiery sparks of transmutation, enchantment, and illusion. 

_Well, then._

The Sugar Plum Fairy is filling his mortal body with magic. Has been doing so for weeks, if not longer. 

The litany had almost certainly been a self-sustaining power source. A conjuration spell nestled neatly within a false abjurative one. The hallmarks are clear as day, now that he thinks to look for them. He had been _summoning_ more shadows each night, not driving them away. And each night he had done so, the - _possession_ , as it were, had congealed a little more within his frame. 

If Lapin didn’t hate his patron, he admits grimly to himself, he might have the capacity to be a _little_ impressed with the genius required to pull such a thing off.

 _She’s truly the fucking worst,_ he thinks, and drops the spell, throwing the books haphazardly into his bag. He does not even bother to reactivate the wards on the door as he rushes out of the library. 

_Perhaps it’s time I put those standing stones to better use than Lazuli did._

***

The standing stones remain as easy to find as ever, even in the fog and haze of a rainy winter evening. Trees tower up like burnt skeletons around Lapin as he makes his way deeper into the forest, their outlines looming stark and sharp against the sky. He scrambles into the glade, the small circle of six stones all spaced perfectly evenly apart from one another. A carpet of grass sprouts up around them, then thin green blades coated with crystals of frost. 

A strong wind starts to pick up among the branches as he walks into the center of the stones. They rustle and bend in the corner of his eye, brushing against each other. 

_A storm is coming,_ Lapin thinks, dazedly. 

Then, a second later: _She could control it, if she was close enough._

The words are – dissonant. Wrong. Not specific enough. He does not know quite who he is referring to. _Someone,_ that much is glaringly obvious, but...

The forest is quiet. Too quiet. The only sound is the soft hum of the stones. They are almost iridescent now, not just pink –no, there are whole worlds swirling within them, if he tries to look too closely. 

Something sick and sweet is starting to surge in Lapin’s throat -like bile, but worse, choking his lungs, steadily filling them up. Water, maybe. Like when he jumped into the ocean. Or liquid sugar. Or perhaps his own blood. He puts a finger up to his lips and it comes away red. 

The grass brushes lightly at his ankles. Lapin feels his feet sink an inch into the dirt, the comforting, chilly dirt. When he glances down, the earth laced with strands of sweet pink grass and….dozens of jagged shards of teacups. Ceramic, planted neatly alongside the grass as if a votive offering. _Those weren’t here a moment ago, were they?_

_I should stay here and investigate them further._

And it is the very forcefulness of the thought – so certain, overly certain, not truly his – that propels Lapin into motion. He pulls one foot free, then the other, taking a step backwards, but the ground resists, rumbling softly in protest. Lapin feels himself starting to sink once more. 

_Oh, no no no. No, you don’t_ . He will be _damned_ if he dies by drowning in the fucking earth. Not after all he’s been through this month. 

The words for Thunderstep are easy to mutter, even while hunched over, wracked with pain. The trees on either side of the grove sway back, flattened temporarily, as Lapin’s vision goes white. With a _boom,_ he is outside the circle, several dozen feet at least, and the sweet liquid in his throat is gone. Oxygen returns in a dizzying rush, sending his vision dancing with spots and lines, a psychedelic carnival; he falls to the ground, trying unsuccessfully to choke back a yell. 

_Theo, you were dead wrong about me,_ he thinks, somewhere on the edge of blacking out entirely. _I really don’t handle it quietly._

A year later, an _eternity_ later, the coughing finally subsides. Lapin folds over gratefully onto his back and breathes, staring up at the nighttime sky. It occurs to him that, had he been slightly smarter, or slightly humbler, he would have asked Sir Theobald to come with him to the circle. 

But – no. Theo is a part of the royal family, and they are surely all at the castle now, spending time together, trying to reconcile their next steps. Or maybe simply reuniting. They all deserve that. They have been through far too much in the past weeks. And he has done less than he could have to mitigate that. 

_I should return to protect them, shouldn’t I? Since there seems to be nothing here?_

Lapin bites his lip, feeling a little bit of sweetness rise up in his lungs at the voice. 

It’s too _sharp_ , that’s the thing. Thoughts are rarely clear. Thoughts are jumbled impulses, half-formed sentences. The thoughts that have been out of place in his mind, haunting his brain for weeks...they’re _perfect._ Model sentences, with each word placed carefully after the next, lined up in a mold. Careful puzzle pieces, of someone trying to figure out the mortal mind. _She has possessed me enough that she can make her words seem like my own. Of course she'd be that fucking thorough._

He pushes himself up to his elbows, shields his eyes with one hand as he cautiously peers at the standing stones, glowing a rosy pink. They throb slightly, like a heartbeat, but seem to remain dormant. For the moment, at least. 

“All right, my lady,” Lapin mutters. Probably not the wisest idea to speak out loud to an eldritch being in her domain. But it feels like more of a victory than saying nothing at all. Being alone with his thoughts at this point could well be a suicide move. “Are you going to come out to speak to me?” 

The stones continue to pulse in place, the blackened trees still swaying in the constant, gentle breeze. 

Nothing responds. There is no gleam of eldritch light, no many-winged figure hovering in the air and glowing with celestial radiance. 

“I should have studied that damn book better when I was a child,” Lapin says, a little louder. “Maybe I would have figured out how to make you _talk on command,_ instead of invading my thoughts?” 

Provocation seems just as effective as requesting - which is to say, completely useless. Lapin sighs, pushes himself up to stand fully, and reaches into his backpack, yanks the leather wrappings off of the cover of _Cantus Fortis._

 _Detect Evil and Good,_ Lazuli had said. If Detect Magic has gone months without practice, Detect Evil and Good has gone _years,_ but it is worth a shot. Lapin bites his lip harder, drawing a bit of blood on his tongue as he flips through the book, tries to remember the words. 

_“_ _Deprehendere, bonum malum,_ ” he finally mutters, staring at the abandoned glade, hoping for something to happen. There _must_ be a way to uncover more information here, at the very least, if his fucking patron doesn’t feel like showing up to the party. Standing stones are not magical artifacts to underestimate. _“_ _Deprehendere bonum malum.”_

The stones swirl, swirl, swirl. Lapin remembers the vertigo from before, and unfocuses his eyes, glances up at the sky and tries to trace the outlines of the constellations. 

A soft whisper from the standing stones brings his focus snapping back down a second later. 

_“Liam, can you get the lock?”_

Ruby’s voice, high and excited. Lapin glances wildly around, but - no. He cannot see the princess, or her twin, or the Count. They don’t seem to be anywhere in the forest. 

Instead, he sees now, the pink stone closest to him is showing shadowy figures, projected across the rough surface. They look almost like a trick, an illusion of the light, but their edges and features are much too sharp for that to be the case. Three small humanoid shadows are clustered in the lower corner of the stone. One wields a long rapier and the other two are armed with bows. Their puffed sleeves stick out from their twig-like arms in a distinctly recognizable way.

_The princesses and Liam._

He must have activated some sort of scrying spell. Or - a place where the Sugar Plum Fairy’s magic is active, at the very least. Lazuli’s notes echo in his head. _All the innate pieces of power in the sacred place reveal themselves._

The shadowy images on the marble move. As Lapin watches, a building coalesces out of shadow, two stories tall, its roof thatched with straw, and Liam kneels down in front of its gate, his shadowy hands fiddling with the lock. 

_Somewhere in Dulcington?_ Lapin frowns, walks closer to the stones despite his best instincts, trying to glean details of the place and time. This could be divination, the future. Especially because Lazuli experienced this before. But it could also be a scry - the actions of the present moment. _Is there any way to tell?_

 _“Come on, hurry up,”_ Jet says, a laugh behind her words. _“I don’t have any way to explain why we’re breaking into a lingerie shop if a guard comes around.”_

 _“It’s two in the morning,”_ Liam mutters. “ _No one is coming.”_

Lapin can see further lines of shadow struggling to coalesce in the upper corners of the marble, trying to fill out the rest of the building. The magic is flickering, weak and insubstantial. In need of power. 

He sucks a deep breath in through his nose, wondering whether or not it is worth it to burn his second spell slot on another Detect Evil and Good to complete the picture.

 _Two in the morning._ This is a scry, not a portent spell, then. This is happening at the present moment. So it is best to be safe. Make sure the children are safe - forever, or for as long as he can manage - 

_“_ _Deprehendere, bonum malum,_ ” he whispers, one more time. 

The marble explodes in thin lines of shadow, etching out the two-story lingerie shop in eerily precise detail. Liam and the princesses, starting to clamber over the outside wall. A glowing chest, carefully locked away in the attic of the building.

And four hidden figures of shadow, crouching behind the attic door. Sharp silvery implements are clutched in their misty fingers. Weapons. 

Lapin’s heartbeat accelerates. Double-time, triple-time, quadruple-time, till it threatens to burst out of his ribs entirely. 

_No. Oh, no._

He is running before he even has time to finish the thought - sprinting away from the standing stones, through the forest and down the hill towards Dulcington, as fast as his legs will carry him, praying to nothing and nobody that he will get to the attic in time. 


	5. Devil's Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Basic Eldritch Invocation. You can see normally in darkness, both magical and nonmagical, to a distance of 120 feet._

The street in Dulcington is eerily quiet when Lapin skids out onto the stones, panting for breath, his muddied robes swirling around his feet. Up above, the moon is new and nonexistent. Only faint starlight and the weak puddles of far-off street lamps illuminate the front of Lazzie’s Lingerie. The name is etched onto the storefront in precise emerald script. The gate in front of it hangs slightly open. 

_What in the name of any and all gods possessed them to come here?_ Lapin wonders wildly. Eldritch energy trickles off his fingertips as he melts the lock on the front door with a few sparks of magic, not even bothering to pick it. _Why did they sneak out without telling someone?_

As he runs up the stairs, mapping the rendering he saw on the standing stones onto the pathway in front of him, the response comes back. The voice is very similar to his own, but he can hear the difference now. Sharp and crystalline. Just a _little_ bit too sweet. 

_It is because they are children, brave one. Children are meant to disobey._

_But not to_ die _for it,_ Lapin snarls at the Sugar Plum Fairy, and bursts through the door to the attic. 

His eyes adjust almost immediately to the lack of light; weeks of trying to spot shifting shadows have made him resilient to darkness. Something moves to his right, a downwards slicing motion. He steps fluidly out of the way of a water-steel blade, which passes a hairsbreath in front of his nose. In front of him is an open chest and an open window to its left, swinging and banging erratically in the nighttime wind. There is a splotch of blood on the floor. It is large. _Much_ too large. 

Two more figures stand talking in the center of the room, with a fourth man leaning out of the window, scanning the street. All three whip around at the cry of the man to Lapin’s right as his water-steel dagger misses. Lapin grabs the man’s wrist and _twists_ it viciously, till the dagger drops to the floor and something pops loose from its socket below the skin. 

There is barely any time to think. Even less time to consider consequences. Lapin has been in battle before, and in street brawls before that, and battle is not a place to hesitate. 

With his free hand, he sends a blast of eldritch energy at the shoulderblades of the man by the window, nearly throwing his own shoulder out in the process to give the cantrip the same kick that it had back on the ocean. The trick works, though he can’t even remember when he learned it. The blast lacerates the man’s skin, but sends him skidding fifteen feet backwards; he tumbles headfirst out the second story window, the fall followed by a sickening _crunch_ a second later. 

Both of the men in the center of the room unsheath their swords. Lapin sees black cloaks part to reveal woven brown breastplates and dingy white toga. _Ceresian._ He throws a radiant cantrip towards the wooden chest and it erupts into flame, illuminating the room. 

Senator Ciabatta’s face, half-shrouded by a dark assassin’s hood, stares back at him from the center of the floor. Lapin feels all of the fury in his heart crystallize into something far calmer and _far_ worse. 

_You tried to hurt the Rocks family._

The Senator holds up a hand, and Lapin feels the soldier whose wrist he is still gripping halt in place at the order. The man at Ciabatta’s side does the same. 

“Chancellor,” Ciabatta says smoothly. “Might I ask why you have _attacked_ us this fine night?” 

“Where are the children?” Lapin wastes no time, scanning the room as he speaks. Three dagger hilts lie scattered on the floor nearer to the chest. Drops of liquid stain the floorboards around them - marks where watersteel has dissolved. One dagger was almost enough to kill King Amethar, back at the tournament. _They came here with at least four._

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Ciabatta’s words are level. A friendly smile splits his face in two like an open wound. “My apologies for our, ah, discreetness. I’m sure this must seem deeply suspicious, but I promise you, there’s a perfectly _reasonable_ explanation. We have important missives for Candia, I assure you. We come only as friends.” 

The chest burns behind Ciabatta, flames licking up the wood. In the firelight, the wounds decorating the Senator’s body are all too clear. Blood drips from the armor of both remaining soldiers. Crossbow bolts and a single acid-green arrow are stuck into the back wall, the missiles bent and broken in two. 

Lapin matches his smile to the width of the Senator’s, bares his teeth just a little bit, and steadies his feet on the floorboards. 

“ _Bullshit_ , Ciabatta.”

As it turns out, the number of water-steel daggers in the room is at least _five._ Ciabatta becomes a blur of motion, pulling one of the weapons from its sheath at his side and hurling it across the room. 

Lapin releases the soldier’s wrist and pulls the man in front of him to take the hit; the watersteel sinks into the Ceresian’s armor, dissolving on impact, and a minute later, Lapin looks up just in time to slash his hand out through the air in a low line A whip of darkened purple-black magic knocks the feet out from under all three Ceresians, and there is a collection of shouts as they hit the floor. Hard. The soldier directly in front of Lapin is the most unlucky. His impact is accompanied by an ugly squelching sound as his head collides with a protruding nail in the floorboard, and he does not rise again. 

As Ciabatta and the remaining soldier spring to their feet, Lapin takes a step to the left of the still-open doorway. His next eldritch blast brings the Ceresian soldier hurtling fifteen feet towards him, out through the doorway and down the steep flight of stairs. The man’s shriek of terror is abruptly cut off with a _crunch_ of bone. _When did I learn how to modify my magic so?_

The Senator, for his part, stands, cracks his knuckles, taps his fingers on his sword hilt, and steps back behind the burning chest, eying Lapin the way that a cat might eye a cockroach. He does not look in the least fazed. He does, unfortunately, look ready to fight. 

_Well, fuck._ Lapin is not particularly in any condition to deal with a goddamned _war hero._

The children are still nowhere to be seen, and Lapin wonders, for a horrible instant, if the Ceresians have already disposed of their bodies. He grits his teeth and bats the thought away, prepares another blast of purple magic. Perhaps he can disarm Ciabatta, if he is quick enough to -

_Thwap._

A crossbow bolt, twisted shards of red and white peppermint melted to a needle-sharp point, cleanly cleaves through Ciabatta’s skull. There is a long moment where Ciabatta’s expression does not change, except for maybe a fractional widening of the eyes. 

Then the Senator’s body plummets forward and smashes through the embers of the chest, face-down on the attic floor. 

Lapin lets himself sink back against the doorframe for just a second, breathes, and scans the room for the Count of Freezyburg. Liam Wilhelmina has certainly proved himself to be stealthy. Amethar and Sir Theobald had talked to him in hushed tones about what the boy had done to claim the enemy House Bleu ship, that night on the ocean. It makes sense that the archer’s hiding place would be difficult to track.

What he does _not_ expect is for the air above the chest to shimmer and fold in on itself. A length of rope thuds down against the timbers, and Liam drops down after it a moment later, landing heavily on top of Ciabatta’s corpse. 

In one hand, he holds his crossbow, another peppermint bolt already nocked. In the other, he is holding Jet; the Princess is draped over his shoulder, eyes closed, her limbs swinging limply as Liam lowers her to the floor. His cheeks are stained with tears. 

Lapin does not even remember moving. One moment, he is still by the door. The next, he is beside Jet, kneeling down, heedless of the lightheadedness starting to spiral through his brain. He presses a hand carefully to the crown of the princess’s head, sending almost every spark of healing light that he possesses through her skin. 

The magic fizzles and dies on contact. Lapin watches the purple sparks rebound from Jet’s body, curl up into the air, and wink away into nothingness. 

“She’s dead,” Liam says evenly. 

“No,” Lapin replies. It is a feeble attempt at denial, a form of magic in its own right. _Perhaps the boy misspoke._

“Ruby got away, I think.” Liam sits crosslegged on the floor beside him. There is another gentle _thwap._ Lapin glances up to see the boy shoot a second bolt into Ciabatta’s corpse, this one straight through the heart. “We told her to run.” 

A long, yawning silence fills the attic, heavy enough to crush, thick enough to choke on. 

Lapin watches the vein in Jet’s neck, where a pulse should be beating. _Should_ start beating, any minute now. Instead, he sees only two great cuts through the fabric of her clothes - one in her shoulder and one in her abdomen. The edges of the cloth are corroded away, and the flesh beneath is ragged and ruined. The effects of watersteel, Jet’s eyes are closed, but no dreams flutter behind them. Her face is twisted, the muscles tensed in rigor mortis, halfway between a smile and a scream. 

It is that memory, of the way the child smiled at her twin sister, that breaks something inside Lapin. 

He closes his eyes, and searches for the Sugar Plum Fairy in the recesses of his mind. 

_Bring her back._

The silence in the attic grows, and grows, and grows. 

_I_ know _you heard me,_ Lapin grits out. _Speak to me. I - I command you to speak to me. And I command you to bring her back._

A gentle wind sends the window banging back and forth on its hinges. Distantly, Lapin thinks he hears Liam gasp, but the sound is discordant and far away. Everything is muffled, as if the world has been filled with cotton wool. 

_Why, precious one. I cannot resurrect the dead._

Fingernails brush Lapin’s cheek, ever so gently. The scent of sugar spirals in the air, dizzyingly strong, accompanied by the faint flutter of wings. 

_Fuck your falsehoods, O Great One. O Holy Being._ Lapin puts every ounce of hatred he can behind the thoughts. _You have enough power to waste dancing me around like a puppet on a string. So you have more than enough power to bring her back!_

The Sugar Plum Fairy laughs, and laughs, and _laughs_ , an endless peal of bells falling upon bells in a great cascade. Lapin’s whole body is throbbing now. None of the watersteel daggers hit him, but pain is starting to pulse through every inch of his arms nonetheless, biting and burning in ever-increasing waves. He grits his teeth and holds on to consciousness for dear life. _Bring her back!_

 _But I demand wishes from_ you _, Chancellor, not the other way around!_

 _You lie!_ Lapin shouts, and the attic window shatters, glass shards spraying across the floor. _I name you liar and deceiver, Lady. I have been dragged back into a semblance of life and your magic has haunted me every night since it happened. I do not pretend to understand why. I do not know what you_ want _of me. But you will bring her back to life, this very instant. Even if I have to destroy you to make you do it._

The wind stops abruptly.

When Lapin opens his eyes, the Sugar Plum Fairy towers above him. Her form stretches up to the attic ceiling, high above Jet’s body, above Ciabatta’s corpse. Liam Wilhelmina, trembling, is hiding into a corner of the room, as far away from her as he can get. Rainbow light trails from the end of the Fairy’s wings in long crystalline strands. Her mouth is frozen in a stately smile. The shadows of the room drape off her like a hideous cloak. 

_All right, then,_ she says, and the words resolve in a joyous chord. 

Lapin watches his hands start to glow. Layers of skin start to slough off, one after the other, faster and faster, like dead leaves crumbling from a tree. His fingers burn away into bone. Then his palms. His forearms. His biceps. 

It is too good to be true. He knows it is. The Sugar Plum Fairy surely cannot be trusted, but - Jet. The princess. Any consequences can be borne, if he is able to heal her. 

Carefully, Lapin reaches up in the air above Jet’s corpse, and draws two symbols in glowing purple lines. The shorthand for the incantation. The only one that makes sense. 

_“Dulcis fortis,”_ he whispers hoarsely. Basic, temporary healing, but perhaps it will work this time. Just this once. _Please bring her home to her family._

A vein starts to beat in Jet's neck, slowly, weakly. Lapin nearly collapses to the floor as the princess’s chest starts to rise and fall with faint, feeble breaths. 

So all-consuming is his relief that he fails to see the Fairy drift downwards towards him until it is far too late.

With a blur of motion, she leans down, impossibly fast, and stabs her long, clawed finger directly through his heart. 

_I am afraid you do not get to destroy me, Chancellor. In fact...it is_ quite _the other way round._

There is a sharp ripping sound, a breathtaking pain in Lapin’s chest. He convulses, folds forwards into himself. Purple light washes up his arms, blinding, burning, all-consuming. Dimly, he thinks he hears Liam scream in horror. 

_Do not worry about the royals, Lapin,_ the Sugar Plum Fairy says sweetly. _I will use your body wisely, and I will make sure they are safe with me. Forever._

Lapin grasps in vain for some way, any way, to fight back. But before he can even speak, the light consumes his chest, dives deep between his ribs, explodes into his heart. 

Between one breath and the next, he is gone. 


	6. Eldritch Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Basic Eldritch Invocation. You have advantage on Constitution saving throws to maintain your concentration on a spell._

The eyes blink open, slowly, to reveal a wooden ceiling. A second later, two faces fade in, hovering over her anxiously.

_Fascinating._

The two figures are...children. Yes. Both their mouths are twisted in ways that often indicate concern - at least on mortals less zealous about hiding their true feelings. The boy’s face has a few splatters of blood staining his peppermint skin. The girl’s dark hair is cascading haphazardly out of her braid, her lower lip trembling. But her eyes - _ah_. Bright, magical eyes. The general’s eyes. And the general’s sword in her hand. 

The young Rocks princess. Some of that same fire is in the boy’s eyes too. Perhaps he is a cousin, or a distant nephew. No matter. Still of the magical persuasion. Good enough. 

“ _Liam, what happened to his eyes - to his hands - why are they - "_

_“I don’t know, Jet! He healed you, somehow, and...and the fairy was there, hovering in the air, and everything was loud and bright and painful. But then you were breathing, and she dove at him and vanished, and he collapsed -”_

The words are like small, buzzing insects, flitting around the body’s head. She blinks the eyes a few times, lubricates them to make them work better, and stands, holds the hands out in front of her body to inspect them. 

_Ah._ The bone is glowing translucent below the skin. All along the length of the arms, small smiles open and shut, tiny teeth appearing and disappearing, tiny tongues licking in and out of the eldritch mouths. Likely, this will continue worsening over time. Mortal forms are fragile like that. Some of the muscle tendons have survived, though; they drape over the bone like lengths of twine, burning the same bright purple. There is a surprising amount of blood.

 _This is a particularly worn-out mortal,_ the Sugar Plum Fairy muses. 

_Pity._ She had hoped he was more resilient than this; the sleep deprivation should not have taken _this_ much from him. Mortals did it to themselves all the time; why should a magically induced version be so much worse? But, perhaps, it was simply the age. The good Chancellor is not - well, _was_ not - young in years. 

Nevertheless, wear and tear aside, the Chancellor was a spellcaster. She had made him as such, her magic infusing his blood slowly but surely for decade after decade of his life before he figured it out. Of course, it had been necessary to accelerate drastically at the end. It was touching, really, that he had figured out the purpose of the spell. But it didn’t change its success. 

The Sugar Plum Fairy tilts her head at the Count and Princess, feels a stab of sadness that they are likely to require such _detailed_ attention. It is always sad that mortals cling so violently to their petty mortal lives.

She is only trying to bring them home, after all. Only trying to save them.

She stretches out one of the arms, popping it out of its socket to get a bit of extra reach, and draws a circle in the air. Its lines glow purple and fade into an inky black shadow-stain, scorching through the empty space. A second later, the glyph explodes outwards, throwing the children to the ground with twin screams of fear. 

_Unfortunate._ It really is so, so sad. But they will not have to be scared for long. Their souls will be safe soon. 

The Fairy lets the bones of the Chancellor’s fingers elongate, grows them into ten needle-sharp spikes dripping with sticky sugar syrup, a foot long at the least. The princess springs back to her feet, her rapier in her hand. It is almost _blinding,_ the gleam of ancestral magic wrapped around that blade. The Fairy can see it clear as day now, despite the dismal operation prospects of the Chancellor’s eyes; it shimmers with years of pent-up magical energy. 

She tilts the head, examining it. (Doesn’t the princess have a twin somewhere? Ah, yes. _Ruby._ She will have to find her momentarily. It would not do to let anyone be forgotten.)

“ _Lapin, I don’t know what’s happened to you, but snap out of it,”_ the Princess says. 

The rapier is leveled at the Chancellor’s chest, shaking slightly. Behind the princess, the boy carefully nocks an arrow of peppermint into the channel of his crossbow, then raises it up. They both seem particularly rattled by the mortal form, and the Sugar Plum Fairy is taken aback for a minute. Surely they have spent _some_ time with the Chancellor since she brought him back.

Ah, yes. It’s probably the arm that she dislocated. Or the excess of teeth. But in this form, it takes time to produce glamours and illusions to cover up the more _distinctive_ magical side effects. And the Fairy does not have any time to waste. If the children have the desire to fight her, that is fine. She will win, and their mortal forms will be removed - but their spirits will come with her back to the mountains, and there, they will live _forever_.   
  
She gives the air a few experimental slashes with the spiked fingers, then strides towards Jet and Liam. Her smile grows so wide it threatens to split the skin apart on either side of the Chancellor’s face. 

Movement, in the windowsill, in the corner of the Chancellor's eye. 

The other princess materializes out of thin air, a second after her arrow does. The sharpened length of acid-green sugar connects with the flesh of the body’s shoulder, sends it crashing back into the wall. 

Shadows rush up to claim the Sugar Plum Fairy - dark and calming, welcoming as the grave. _Interesting,_ she muses, as the body collapses limply to the floor and she fades into the aether for a little while. _I can be knocked unconscious while possessing him. Good to know._

***

_Ship’s brig._

The words fill her mind a second after she opens the eyes - just the two of them, sadly, though she will grow some more if it becomes necessary - and takes in a stream of localized details. Gentle sway of the entire room. Wooden floor. Iron bars. Porthole in the opposite wall, through which the night sky is starless and dark. Crates clutter the room. No stairs are immediately visible. Possibly on purpose. When she moves to stand, she finds the feet and hands of the Chancellor are bound tightly together, restricting her options

Voices drift towards her, from somewhere deeper in the room. The dramatis personae take a moment to place, as she sifts through the Chancellor’s memories like drifts of snow for which voice corresponds to which mortal. 

_“Someone has to watch him at all times, Theo, but you’re running yourself ragged.”_

_“The crew needs sleep, my king. I am capable of watching him.”_

_“And I’d rather like them not to be_ murdered _in their sleep, yes. Believe me, I appreciate you. Just...please take care of yourself. You heard my daughters. Whatever’s happened to him, I suspect he could escape if he wants to. Meaning he has decided not to. That concerns me."_

A scattering of light footsteps, descending into the timber shell of the ship to join the conversation. _“Pops, Liam says it’s two days to the fork in the river, and then_ weeks _through the mountain to reach Uncle Joren. What do we_ do _once we’re on foot, exactly?”_

_“I don’t know, Jet. I really don’t. I’m open to suggestions.”_

The Sugar Plum Fairy smiles placidly with the Chancellor’s mouth as the conversation continues. Sentences overlap, become easier to format as she works out how to better use the body’s ears. The Rocks family and associates. Such charming individuals.

_“It’s definitely not him. Not...really him.”_

_“I understand, Jet. Believe me. But if we’re going to bring him with us, we have to be careful. I’ve already been betrayed by one man today, one who I thought I knew well. I’m not willing to let it happen again.”_

_“Calroy’s men would have found him if we’d left him there! They’d kill him on sight, you know that!”_

_“Your father makes a valid point, Princess Jet. Caution is never unwarranted, and given that it’s a small miracle any of us escaped the castle alive -”_

_“I am the future heir of the country, regardless of whatever the fuck Uncle Cal- Sir Calroy has decided to play at, and we are_ not _giving up on Lapin!”_

 _“Enough!”_ Amethar roars, and the princess and Lord Commander stop speaking as abruptly as if Silence had been cast. 

The Sugar Plum Fairy idly examines the binding on the Chancellor’s hands. The rope has thin lengths of steel woven through it. _Ingenious_. Perhaps they think that will slow her escape? It will not, of course, but it’s still a clever thought. 

But - hmm. They are headed to the mountains, even without her prodding. How providential. And the children seem - attached to this mortal form. Their dear Chancellor. How sweet. And what a pity he never thinks about the Rocks’ devotion to him, too. It has been so far from his mind, even when he stepped in to take damage for them again and again, that she herself has not realized its extent until this moment. 

_He truly doesn’t understand that they actually care about him._

She smiles, relieved, and sinks back against the bars, lets the eyelids flutter closed. Bad news for the poor Chancellor, but extremely good news for her. If they care about Lapin, then they will keep his body close, and walk it straight into the mountains with them. What is the point of exhausting extra effort before then? It will be enough to give them the satisfaction of thinking they have her safely locked away. 

She will step in if someone tries to halt their passage, the Fairy decides. Other than that, this will do for now. 

_“We keep him locked up, we keep a watch, and we get to Joren as quickly as we can,”_ the Candian king says, as if on cue. His voice sounds so _exhausted._ Ragged with weeping, perhaps. A thread of memory drifts across the Fairy’s mind like a cloud crossing the sky on a bright day - years of watching the Lord Cruller from afar, slowly moving pieces into place for his inevitable coup. 

Such a shame. But then - the poor traitor _was_ going to betray them, sooner or later. Had he done a better job of it, the Rocks family might be even safe in paradise even now, or at least the children. No matter. That was simply one of many options. What is the use of having backup plans if not to aid the main one, after all?

 _“Come on,”_ the king says. _“Theo, make sure he’s secure.”_

Footsteps echo against the walls of the brig. The Fairy waits, waits, waits. 

A few moments later, she is rewarded by the sight of the knight, emerging from out behind a section of boxes. She grins even wider at the sight of the man’s dishevelment, feeling a few blood vessels pop in the Lord Commander’s face, which is starting to bruise from her smile. Sir Theobald Gumbar’s armor is marked with scorches and notches, places where the forces of Calroy’s whole army clearly tried their best to take him down. A bloodstained bandage is wrapped around his neck, another one around his sword hand, where soot and ash are caked under the fingernails.

He approaches the brig, and leans down, staring at the Chancellor’s face for a long while. 

_“Lapin, if you can hear me,”_ the knight says softly, “ _I’m keeping watch over the Rocks family, so don’t worry.”_

The Lord Commander’s voice is like honey on the word _worry,_ laced with emotions long-frozen in amber. The Sugar Plum Fairy blinks at the man. _Affection._ Yet another thing the Chancellor will not let himself see, it seems. 

_“And to the Lady of the Sweetening Path,”_ Sir Theobald Gumbar continues, much more coldly. _“you had best enjoy your remaining time before we find you and put you to rest. Permanently.”_

Then he turns and retreats back into the maze of boxes, armor clanking ridiculously as he goes. 

The Fairy sits ramrod-straight in her cell, and cannot help but laugh. 

_Permanently to rest, Sir Theobald?_ The idea is...amusing. Feeble, impossible, and amusing. It feels like watching a kitten try to push a mountain over with its tiny little paws. 

_You are a darling. A sentimental darling. I see why the Chancellor liked you. But never fear. You’ll see him again, when I take your soul too._

***

The journey would be boring - for normal, mortal beings. But time is a river to the Sugar Plum Fairy, and she sits beside it, watches it pass idly, causing the body that she is in to slump and rise with the movement of the days. 

The main visible change, through the Chancellor’s eyes, is in the porthole, as the Bulb rises and sets, rises and sets, in a blurry montage of red and black. Sir Theobald comes down into the brig twice more; once, he is accompanied by the second Princess, the one with a bow slung across her back. The Fairy does feel a flicker of emotion at that, and looks down at the Chancellor’s shoulder to note the clean puncture wound where the sharp green arrow knocked her into the wall, back in Dulcington.

 _Trickster._ So: the princess is not to be underestimated, then. Killing her and taking her soul will have to happen quietly, suddenly, or she might try a similar play, and the Fairy cannot afford to lose at the child’s foolish games. 

The princess bends down in front of the bars of the brig, something steely in her gaze. Magic crackles around her fingers, and she starts to mumble something arcane. 

The Sugar Plum Fairy lets eyes multiply across the Chancellor’s face - two, four, eight, blinking open on his cheeks and forehead, their pupils and corneas inky black. The Princess Ruby staggers backwards in horror, reeling at the sight, and the Fairy takes the opportunity to counterspell whatever incantation she was starting, snatching the magic from the air and letting it fizzle and die. 

She grins as the Princess is shepherded away by the alarmed knight. _Oh, sweet child. You are too gentle for your own good._

***

A day or two later, the water outside the porthole changes to summer greenery. The ship grounds to a halt. The Chancellor’s body gets taken out of the brig cell by Sir Theobald, and onto rocky soil. They are at the base of mountains, tall and gem-colored. A flicker of recognition burns bright within the Sugar Plum Fairy’s mind, widening the ceaseless smile that is pasted onto Lapin Cadbury’s face and stained across his cracked and bruised lips.

_Home._

Here, her temple lies; here, she is at her most powerful. This is truly a fortuitous day. There is _nothing_ she has to do, except trust that their sentimental attachment to their dear Chancellor will result in the Rocks family dragging her all the way into the most magical place in Candia. The route to Joren Jawbreaker’s palace goes straight through the heart of the canyon that her temple sits upon - and then, when they are close enough, she will break away, lure them towards the temple, and then take their souls home with her forever. A simple plan. A glorious one. 

She turns her grin on the assembled family, enjoying the reactions just a little bit as each of them winces, looks away. It is understandable. An eldritch spirit altering a mortal one is a beautiful thing - beautiful in eldritch terms, though, not in mortal ones. Myriad bloody smiles lace the transparent skin of the Chancellor’s arms, matching the one on his face. The bones radiate purple light; the eyes are pure black, sans any pupil, and weep tears of ink down the strained skin of the man's cheeks. _Do you recognize me yet?_

Clearly, the Rocks family has already been talking about what to do when their Chancellor’s body arrived. They say few words in front of the Fairy that she can hear, but Lapin’s eyes are augmented by her presence in his form, and she is able to observe streams of magic zipping from one family member to another, trailing through the air like ribbons binding them together. The Message cantrip. _Adorable._ They are really just _so_ scared. 

***

Days pass. The Fairy notices this fact only idly. The body is transported further into the mountains, deeper towards the temple, the freezing, beautiful place where all the secrets of paradise lie in wait. The euphoria of the knowledge sends her spiraling into such a state of joy that she eventually shuts the Chancellor’s eyes and keeps them shut, waiting for her eventual arrival on the canyon path. She will feel it when it happens. She knows that much. And then, it will be time to act. 

But when she next opens his eyes, something has changed. More time has passed. Perhaps a day, perhaps two. And they are no longer on the mountain paths. 

Oh, no. Instead, she sees, the Rocks family is kneeling on a rocky floor in front of her, stone towering up around them like a great cathedral in the heart of the earth. Marauders stand at attention, their weapons unsheathed and ready for use. Braziers burn around them. The Chancellor’s hands have been chained a second time, and the body is curled in a languid heap up against the wall of the massive cavern. 

The Fairy drops the grin from the Chancellor’s face with a soft crackle of overstretched skin. 

_Foolish. I was foolish._

Oh, she has made a grave error. A grave, selfish error. They have drifted off the path to the temple - drifted so far that they are in the domain of the heretical one. The usurping one. The storm-wielder. The adversary who _dares_ to set foot in _her_ mountains. 

The Witch-Queen. 

And there the Queen sits, lounging on her throne, just a few dozen feet away, talking to the Rocks about succession. Lineage. Parentage. Some trivial mortal matter or another. Her hair is dyed in colorful neapolitan colors, cascading down over her makeshift armor. She is practically _riddled_ with arcane artifacts, and hatred curls in the Sugar Plum Fairy’s soul at the sight of her _using_ them. Wasting all that precious, beautiful magic, out here in the mortal world. 

_Enemy._

The Witch-Queen has been trying to breach the temple doors for years now. Trying to desecrate and _defile_ \- to steal magic away and out into the world, for _use._ Warlock powers are slight in comparison to her full might - but perhaps the Fairy can take care of the enemy here and now. 

It is a simple matter to break free of the chains, even though the Fairy feels some of the fragile bones of the mortal body snap like twigs as she does so. The marauders all shout, rushing around in confusion, and the Witch-Queen does not even deign to rise from her throne, turning to look at the Chancellor with a spark of worry in her eyes. 

The Fairy raises up Lapin’s bloody hands and summons a great cone of chilling energy, prepares gleefully to freeze the usurper up against the cave wall, to stab her to death with a thousand icy spikes - 

_“All right, I’m going to say_ no _to that,”_ the Witch-Queen says in exasperation, and waves a hand.

The spell fizzles out. A moment later, the butt of a sword hits the Chancellor’s body in the head. Hard. 

The world becomes darkness, yet _again._ Unconsciousness. A frustrating trend. A _difficult_ trend. Perhaps, the Fairy muses, she _is_ going to start having to be more proactive. 

***

When the mortal body wakes up, it is in another cell. The chamber has thick metal bars lining two walls; the other two are carved from rock. The Fairy is somewhere deep in the Witch-Queen’s domain - and the storm-wielder structured this prison herself, that much is clear. Traces of thunderous magic, a year or two old, curl around the corners of the room, dissolved deep into the dark grey stone. Lightning dances around the thick cuffs that bind the Chancellor’s hands to the ground - strong restraints, the Fairy finds, as she struggles against them but breaks the rest of the bones in the mortal body’s hands to no avail. 

Such a _waste._ The foolish child. She has wasted more magic than all of the Rocks combined - even than the Archmage, the long-dead one, who had also dared to defy the way that things should be. Magic should be kept safe in the Temple, in the immortal space of the Sweetening Path. Not out _here._ Not in Candia itself. 

Footsteps strike against the rock like flint against steel. As if on cue, the Witch-Queen herself rounds the edge of the corridor, coming into view through the bars. The Sugar Plum Fairy snarls at her. She makes the Chancellor’s eyes flash blinding white, and elongates his smile, filling it jaggedly until there are twice as many bloody teeth inside of it. 

To the storm-wielder’s credit, though, she does not flinch. Instead, she leans against the cavern wall, her wooden staff crackling with arcane energy. 

_“I have reunited with my long-lost family today,”_ the Queen says. The words are calm and gentle. She sounds as if she could be talking to an old friend. _“My father, my stepmother. My two younger sisters. They’re safe now. They’re here. I don’t have the slightest clue how to feel about Dad, but Jet and Ruby - they’ve come to me in private. They’ve said they want to be friends. That they want to get to know me. They’re wary, true, and that hurts a little. But I think they’re genuine.”_

The Fairy tilts her head at the woman, but refuses to respond. 

_“We’ve been catching up, you see,”_ the heretic prompts. _“Speaking about their adventures. Their losses. They’ve talked about you.”_

There is a long pause, magic hanging thick in the air. Finally, the Witch-Queen kneels down in front of the bars. Her smile is mirthless. 

_“Or - talking about_ Lapin _, should I say. See, I know you’re not him. Not the_ real _version of him.”_

Interesting. _Extremely_ interesting. More out of curiosity than anything, the Fairy works the body’s vocal cords for the first time in weeks, as if she is gently strumming the strings of a lyre. 

“Of course I am Lapin Cadbury.” 

The words come out rusted and hoarse, ill-fitting to the Chancellor’s lips. 

_“Oh, deeply convincing!”_ The Queen strokes a finger down the iron bars, taps the tip of her staff on the stone floor. _“I’m absolutely inclined to believe you, after that stunning performance. No - I know your tricks, Lady of the Sweetening Path. You have...warped him. Possessed him. Made him a puppet of yours. His body and identity is a skin over your magic, your desires, your plans. He’s not really here right now. You’ve killed him - or you’ve locked him away in some ethereal cage.”_

The Fairy laughs a little, at that, though she does not let it translate to the body’s chest cavity. _A skin, you say?_

For a moment - just a brief one - she stretches her awareness into the epidermal layer of the Chancellor’s body. Skin peels away from the ribs in great drooping folds, until, in a matter of seconds, the Witch-Queen is staring at the bloodied chest cavity and steadily beating heart that once belonged to Lapin Cadbury. Redness runs down the front of the Chancellor’s robes and pools at the end of her staff, soaking into the wood.

Yet the Queen _still_ does not flinch. The Fairy feels a brief spark of worry. _Is anything able to intimidate this woman?_

 _“I want you to know that your tricks won’t work on me,”_ the Witch-Queen spits, the smile still rigid on her face, half-shadowed by the iron bars. _“You might be able to convince the Rocks to pull punches on you, because they knew the man. Because they clearly care for him. But I will happily sacrifice his life if it means stopping you._ Happily _. And from what they’ve told me about Lapin Cadbury, I think he would understand that impulse of mine.”_

She stands, sweeping her long robes through the blood as she goes but seemingly heedless of the stains. The Fairy notes the spell components stuffed into a pouch at her belt, the thick fur-lined gloves she has put on, as if in preparation for travel. 

_“I will see you in a little while, Lady,”_ the Witch-Queen says, stalking out of the room. _“And mine will be the last face you_ ever _see.”_

  
***

The Sugar Plum Fairy waits for a long time after her adversary has left. Thinking. Judging. Burning with hatred. 

The Witch-Queen is smart, to call her play out like that. Smart, and not to be underestimated. But she is not infallible. She knows that the Rocks family are sentimental - are weak to the mortal shell of their former friend. _I will see you in a little while._ She and the Rocks family must be leaving for the temple itself. Even at this very moment, they must be heading there. That is why she would have come to check on Lapin Cadbury’s body. That is the reason for the speech is filled with bravado. The Queen’s threat is not an empty one. She intends to enact it within the next few hours.

The Fairy can take her at the temple, even if the mortal vessel remains here. She knows this. She is more powerful than the little witch, more powerful any day - and _right,_ too, a righteous spirit, with a pure motivation that that woman will never understand or match. 

But if the mortal vessel goes in person, perhaps she can still enact at least scraps of the initial plan. Trick the Rocks. Manipulate a few of them into stepping down the sugary path of their own free will - or, failing that, letting their dear, dear Chancellor close enough to eldritch-blast the souls from their fragile mortal forms. Every little piece helps. Loose ends are never to be left untied. The Rocks must be safe forever. And the Witch-Queen must be stopped, before she puts an end to everything. 

It takes ten more minutes to escape the restraint, and the mortal body sustains dozens of burns and scorch marks in the process, from the lightning enchantments woven deep into the manacles. The sorceress is skillful. But the Sugar Plum finally breaks free. From there, it is a simple matter to elongate the fingers to razor-sharp spines of bone, to slice through the iron bars like butter and let them clatter to the ground. 

She wanders down the corridors, seeking an exit from the wretched marauder den, a path back out to the snowy side of the mountain. A few of the Witch-Queen’s followers are unlucky enough to get in her way, to draw weapons and try to strike her down. When they do, she simply grins and lunges at them with distended teeth, rips great red holes in their bodies, lets the blood pour out in rivers. 

Finally, she sees the white glimmer of snow, beckoning to her through a high-up gap in the cavern ceiling. It is a simple matter to cast Fly on the mortal body. The Chancellor’s form trails blood behind it as the Fairy soars up towards the gap in the stone, and out into the chilly afternoon air. 

_Wonderful._

She is free now, and the Rocks family is almost at the temple. Away from the overwhelming magical aura of the cavern, she can feel it now, clear as a bell - their weak mortal presences hovering right outside the door, which she has lain dormant behind for centuries. 

The smile the Fairy wears only grows wider as she charges the mortal bones with almost enough magic to disintegrate them entirely, then speeds them down the treacherous mountain paths, faster than any of the Witch-Queen’s lightning. She knows a backdoor into the temple. She will arrive at the heart of the Sweetening Path long before they do. 

A reckoning, soon - and then, finally, a victory. The most magical family in all of Candia, safe forever. 


	7. Shroud of Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Eldritch Invocation; prerequisite 15th level. You can cast Invisibility at will, without expending a spell slot._

In the dream, he is sitting in the cathedral pews. The wind blows all around him, a constantly, whistling companion, dancing through his robes, pimpling his skin with goosebumps. Blood does not stain the stone floor this time. Instead, it is suspended in the air, - a thousand crystalline red droplets, frozen in an instant as they plummet down from the very top of the golden dome. 

_Of course it would be raining blood,_ Lapin thinks. _I can’t ever get a break._

He knows, logically, where the altar should be - but when he looks at it, it is not there. Instead, the entire front segment of the cathedral is now a bubbling rainbow membrane, stretching from the floor to the top of the cathedral dome. It flexes and billows, shifting and twisting in a pattern entirely separate from the movements of the wind. 

If Lapin looks too hard, he can see movement through it. Shadowy figures appear and disappear on the other side, their shapes shifting every now and again through the great iridescent curtain. 

_Well. Fucking wonderful._

The sight is both disturbing and beautiful, so Lapin decides to find it beautiful. This is his first real dream in...who knows how long. Something pleasant would be deeply appreciated. 

He sits back in the pew, breathes, and lets himself rest. 

Time passes. How much, he does not know, but despite the crystal clarity of everything, he starts to feel better, energy and vitality returning to his body in painstaking increments. Eventually, when enough of the tiredness has drained from his mind like water escaping from a dam, Lapin gets up and wanders around the room. The cathedral windows are all intact, this time. Nothing is visible through them but darkness, and he’s not entirely sure he wants to tempt fate and break the glass to find out more. The back of the cathedral is entirely taken up by the rainbow magic, with no clear way around it. The front doors of the cathedral are locked tightly from the outside. 

_It very easily becomes a kill-box,_ Lapin remembers, staring at the great double doors. _We were trapped. There was no good route out._

He turns to walk back towards the pews, and something twinges in his head. He winces, his legs giving out and depositing him on the floor in front of the doors in a most undignified manner. 

Memories flood back, one on top of the other. They come in ungainly layers - sound, then scent, then sight, then pain, all tumbling together in a great wash of colors that spiral out into the cathedral in front of him. The bloody rain remains frozen in midair as shadowy figures start to fill the pews, the roar of chatter rising up like a great ocean all around him. 

As Lapin watches, chest heaving, the full picture of Liam’s trial plays out before his eyes in grotesque relief. It takes less time than one might think. It is only a few minutes from the time that he and the Rocks enter the cathedral, shadowy silhouettes of mist, to the time when all hell breaks loose and Amethar draws his sword. From there, the seconds tick away like liquid gold. Lapin watches himself cast Fly on Theo. Step in front of Liam. Fall beneath a series of heavy blows from the paladin he had taken such joy in outsmarting only a day before. 

By the end of it all, his cheeks are wet, but Lapin forces himself to walk to the end of the aisle and sit in the frontmost pew, to watch as the mace shatters his chest. There is a long minute of silence, until finally, one after another, the shadowy figures dissipate into the air, fading to nothingness. Lapin’s corpse goes last, fading into the floor. 

“Well, _fuck_ this,” he says out loud, staring at the spot on the stone where it lay. 

_I died, and I died alone. The Sugar Plum Fairy said she would take me home, and she lied._

The memories are all back now; they file neatly into his head like religious texts lined up on a shelf. His choices, his actions, the last moments before his death. He had irately reached out to the Fairy, asked her about her third wish, if she was really going to abandon him after all this time. She had whispered saccharine-sweet words of devotion. Promises that she would bring him home. 

And as his eyes had closed...pain. Sweet, stinging pain. The feeling of a thousand shards of sugar piercing his soul, transfixing it in place forever like a butterfly wriggling on a pin. His soul, kept in static stasis, until an eldritch being had decided to shove it back in a body and send it plummeting to earth for her own selfish plans. 

_She brought me back simply to manipulate me._

Lapin stretches a hand out in front of him experimentally, flexes and turns the fingers, summons an eldritch blast to his palm and lets it dissipate a second later. No strange smiling mouths break the skin, no bones glow beneath. But he feels light, weightless, free of exhaustion, and the truth breaks through his mind like a brand new dawn. 

_She is possessing my body, even now._

It is so, so nice to be able to dream. To feel _rested,_ truly rested, for the first time in weeks. It would feel good to stay. To simply...relax. To sit down on a pew and wait and wait and wait, and admire the rain. It is all Lapin wants, he finally admits to himself. A chance to rest. To rest, and not feel afraid. 

Instead, he stands, and walks towards the rainbow membrane where the altar should be. 

_There are people I need to protect._

His comfort comes secondary to that duty. That...love. Always. 

When he gets close enough, ducking beneath dozens of suspended droplets of red on his path across the stone, he can see that the iridescent curtain doesn’t seem to be particularly thick. The shadows seem almost within arm’s reach on the other side of it, in some places. They form great towering shapes at the edges of the membrane, leaving great hollow white spaces within, a kaleidoscopic landscape just a few degrees out of focus.

Perhaps it is a trap. In fact, it feels _immeasurably_ like a trap. Frankly, it is so trap-like that Lapin can hear Sir Theobald and King Amethar laughing at him for his lack of tactical judgement. 

But he takes two steps forward, and walks through the curtain anyway, into whatever sleepless hell exists outside. 

Behind him, he hears an almighty crash of liquid as the bloody rain finally falls, drowning the cathedral behind him in an irrevocable wave of red. 

***

The cavern Lapin emerges into is beautiful, in a deadly way. Mist surrounds him on all sides, obscuring his vision. Great ice cream stalagmites dangle down from the ceiling, made from layer upon layer of shimmering purple candy. They drip melted sugar, the drops tumbling into a great black void that yawns on all sides of Lapin, and he feels vertigo sweep sickeningly through his stomach as he glances down. 

He is dangling in midair. Ropes bind his arms, laced carefully around his shoulders and trailing down his torso in a makeshift harness. No, not ropes - they’re too smooth to be rope. Dark, shimmering ribbons suspend him above the void, fluid like living shadows, rustling as he shifts. 

Automatically Lapin, goes to mumble the words for Fly, but feels his tongue freeze mid-movement. The arcane symbols fizzle out on his lips. Ice crystals bubble in his mouth, making him gag at the sudden sharpness. 

_Fuck._

So much for voluntary spellcasting, it seems. 

The thought is cut off as his left hand clenches, the muscles suddenly going rigid. Lapin feels the ice melt in his mouth, and his lips move - but this time, entirely of their own accord. _“Fluctus. Frigis.”_

An unfamiliar spell burns through his veins. The ribbons twist above him, and he whirls around as magic explodes from his hands, just in time for the spiraling cone of icy energy to hit King Amethar Rocks and both of his daughters head-on. Lapin watches, horrified, as Amethar steps in front of Jet, taking the brunt of the assault for her, though Ruby neatly ducks out of the way of the blast. They seem to be standing on a small popsicle platform, floating through the misty cavern, levitating high above the void. But even as he watches, the ribbons twitch again, and the Rocks family fly out of his line of sight. 

_Fuck!_

It is not _mist_ that surrounds him, Lapin sees now. Thousands of filmy purple faces are fluttering around his dangling form. Their eyes are hollow and filled with black liquid, like malevolent inkwells; twin tears trickle down each of their cheeks. The details are hard to make out, though each face seems to be different. But regardless of other features, all their mouths bear the same horrific smile - eerily wide, frozen to their lips, their facial skin cracking and splitting under the strain. 

_Oh. Hello, Chancellor._

The Sugar Plum Fairy’s voice echoes around him, brighter than a thousand bells chiming in unison. 

_You have found your way home. A pity. I hoped you would stay safe - as safe as the rest of your family will soon be. But at least you are in time to see my glorious form!_

All of the mouths move in sync with the words, a thousand gaping maws with overly sharp teeth. Lapin wonders if it’s possible to die from pure fright. All he wants to do is _run -_ to wriggle free of his bindings and drop into the darkness below, if that would get him away from the true form of the fae. He was not meant to look at her like this. No mortal being was. 

“You are not _keeping them safe,_ monstrous one,” he spits instead. “And frankly? I’ve seen _plenty_ more glorious than you.” 

Peppermint bolts pierce several of the faces. Blasts of fiery energy crackle and singe at the edges of the mist, trying to burn it away. The Sugar Plum Fairy hisses, and the sound bounces off the rock of the cavern, folding over on itself again and again. 

The threads controlling Lapin twitch, and he pivots in midair, his fingers snapping of their own accord. His spell sends spikes of ice piercing through a second platform, atop which an unfamiliar woman stands with a mage’s staff, her hair dyed bright neapolitan and her gaze determined. She winces, but slams the staff down on the spikes, shattering them under its butt.

Her mouth moves, and Lapin convulses as a bolt of goddamned _lightning_ electrocutes him, turning the world white for a moment with pain. When his vision clears, the woman is gone, whipped away by the rapid turn of the mists. Clearly, the Rocks family has found another spellcaster in the days since he last saw them. 

_You are my puppet, precious one,_ the Sugar Plum Fairy says. _Why resist?_

Lapin’s hands move, once, twice, thrice. Two of the icicles that shoot from them miss their targets. But the third strikes Sir Theobald directly in the chest, and Lapin gasps inside his mind as the knight teeters on the edge of his platform, precariously close to tumbling off. Cumulous soars through the air, light as a feather, and grabs Theo by his shoulder at the last minute. They disappear into the mist together, lost to Lapin’s eyes. 

_I am your puppet, but I will_ not _make it easy for you,_ Lapin growls. His legs have been slowly drooping downwards, less animated than his head and hands, less useful for spellcasting. With a violent kick, he swings them up towards the ribbons, and manages to twist himself around enough to tangle three of the strands together. It takes precious seconds for the Fairy to regain control of the threads, and when she does, the smiles on all the faces surrounding him flicker into snarls of fury and discontent. 

_Foolish._

The ribbons pull him around to face the Princess Ruby, kneeling on a popsicle platform. Her hair and hands are frosted over with ice, but her eyes burn with hatred as she glares at Lapin. No - not at him. At the faces surrounding him. 

_I do not need your permission, Chancellor,_ the Sugar Plum Fairy says. You _will kill the Rocks for me, regardless of your wishes._

Lapin’s heart sinks as his hand stretches out, arcane magic glowing at the base of his palm in a dark lavender symbol. Sharp needles of ice start to form under his nails. Preparing to fly, to impale, to skewer the princess directly through the heart. 

Ruby, though, does not flee. Instead, she looks him dead in the eye and clasps her hands together, the three central fingers on each hand forming a set of arcane bars. 

_“Tardum tuam,”_ she whispers calmly, though the sound is lost before it can properly reach Lapin’s ears. 

A web of bright red magic locks around Lapin's hands, freezing them in the middle of the unfamiliar spell. The crimson spreads up his arms, immobilizing their movement. The ribbons above his head go still, his body falling rigid and unresponsive, dangling in the magical harness. Bells chorus out through the air as the Sugar Plum Fairy screeches at the Princess, but Ruby is already gone, vanishing into the mist. Leaving Lapin useless for the time being. 

_Well done, Princess._ So he did manage to teach her some useful magic after all. That is a comfort. _I always suspected you might grow up to become a talented mage._

The faces of the Sugar Plum Fairy whirl around him, fluttering and chiming in ever-growing distress. The hissing is growing stronger now, and he can see patches of light beginning to gleam behind the open mouths and empty eyes as the darkness thins and weakens. 

_She is nearing death._ The Rocks family is hurting her. Hurting her badly. And managing to survive in the process, which is always the ideal outcome. 

Out of the corner of Lapin’s eye, Liam Wilhelmina comes back into view. The boy aims, biting down so hard on his lower lip that Lapin sees a thin line of blood run down his chin. The Count’s finger twitches, and a moment later, there is a soft _thud._

Ruby’s spell breaks. Lapin feels his muscles relax back into motion, tightening around something hard and cold buried deep into the center of his chest. He glances down to see one of Liam’s crossbow bolts embedded deep in his ribs. The arrow is driven so far into his flesh that he can feel it cleanly sticking out below his shoulder blade.

 _He’ll make a good friend to the princesses, when they rule,_ Lapin thinks dimly. _Excellent aim for someone so young._

A phantom hand rakes fingernails across his cheek, leaving three long red welts in its wake. 

_No!_ the Sugar Plum Fairy screams in desperation. Lapin feels blood vessels pop in his face at the sound, redness trickling from the corner of his mouth. But, for all that, his lips are no longer frozen in a smile, and victory sends adrenaline rushing through him. The bolt in his chest is leeching life from him, and the Sugar Plum Fairy’s shadowy tie to his life force must go both ways. The extra damage seems to be enough to be seriously wounding her. Whether or not it will kill him too is another matter - but a small price to pay, frankly, if it will stop the fae for good. 

_You have doomed them._ The Fairy wails the words, a great screech of terror. Lapin almost wants to laugh. _You have doomed magic - it is meant to be kept safe, not to be used. I will have revenge on you for this, even if I am dead. I will grant your dearest enemy the power to destroy you for what you have done to me! I am trying to protect, to save, to preserve. I would have kept them safe forever, safe forever..._

 _There is no more forever for you to save,_ Lapin whispers to the Fairy, and she wails at him in desperation. The smile that splits his face this time is all his own.

A glowing green arrow appears in the distance, a shooting star growing ever closer. Lapin watches the bolt of fire streak towards him in slow motion. As it travels, embers of green flame ignite the lavender mist, and the fire spreads, forming great holes in the fog, burning it away to nothingness. All around him, the Sugar Plum Fairy screams and screams. 

Finally, the arrow digs into the other side of his body with a dull _thwack,_ and the thousands of faces surrounding him ignite in flames. Instead of purple fire, they burn bright gold, the color of the Bulb, and burst one after another into yellowy motes of light which flow in a wave up towards the stalagmites, disappearing through the cavern ceiling. 

The ribbons holding him upright dissolve into filmy nothingness, leaving only air behind. Lapin tumbles down into the blackness of the endless void like a rag doll. For a moment, he thinks he sees one last spark of gold follow him down - a figure in golden armor, leaping after him. But that would be impossible. No one would be - foolhardy enough to do that. 

Peace settles, somewhere deep within his chest. The exhaustion is still there. The wounds. The pain. But - 

_She’s gone. She’s dead. She can never possess me again._

For the first time since returning from the dead, the thought is _finally,_ entirely, his own. 


	8. Witch Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Eldritch Invocation; prerequisite 15th level. You can see the true form of any shapechanger or creature concealed by illusion or transmutation magic while the creature is within line of sight._

Lapin stirs slowly, light filtering in through the corners of his eyelids. His mouth tastes sour; his muscles burn as he shifts and pushes himself up to a sitting position, blinking grit from his vision. The world blurs, then clears to a dingy shade of red. 

_What the hell?_

He is lying half-atop Swirlwarden. The shield’s light is extinguished now, its marbled candy swirl cracked straight down the center in a long, jagged line. When Lapin gingerly drops his hands down to his ribs, there are multiple puncture marks, places where the children's arrows struck him, but the arrows themselves seem to have dissolved on the way down.

Sir Theobald lies a few feet away from him. The knight’s armor is broken apart in several places, and his chest rises and falls erratically, blood pooling around one leg and mingling with the dark red stone of the ground. They are in a great glowing cavern, its ceiling stretching up into blackness. Its floor is pockmarked with craters and filled with haphazard heaps of ash and soot and pumice stone. Openings dot the cavern walls. Bright threads of lava gleam through some of them, trailing out into the craters, but the others look empty. Potential escape routes. 

Lapin scrambles over to Theo, his mind clearing, snapping into clinical analysis that conveniently helps assuage the panic that surges up into his throat and threatens to overwhelm him. The knight’s arm still has Swirlwarden’s leather straps attached to it, ripped at the ends. He must have been thrown from his own shield. Or...thrown himself from his shield. Taken the damage of the fall for Lapin. 

A piece of stone has stabbed through a blood vessel in Theo’s leg, with smaller shards of stone puncturing his arm and chest. Lapin winces at the sight. He reaches within himself for purple sparks to knit the vein back together, and - 

Nothing. 

It is like moving one’s arm forward - opening and closing the fingers only to discover that the entire hand is missing and has been missing for days. Lapin scrapes at the incorporeal cavity in his mind where magic has always welled, a familiar bright node, but - nothing is present at the bottom of the well. Nothing responds to his call. 

Nothing at all. 

He pushes harder, grimacing. The effort _hurts,_ hurts enough that he feels himself take damage somewhere deep inside, a bone in his right arm cracking a little further under the strain. 

“ _Fuck,”_ he says out loud. The syllable echoes mordantly around the chamber, bouncing off the walls. Lapin wonders if it would be possible to simply lie down on the ashy ground and cry for a while. It certainly feels like the only possible thing to do. 

But...no. Theo is still bleeding out, and tears won’t do shit to fix the knight’s wounds. 

Lapin has had enough practice passing his healing off as either miracles or medicine that - luckily - actual medicine is not that far out of his areas of expertise. Reaching down, he rips the hem off of his robe and tears it up for bandages. He has nothing on him - no books, no weapons, no water, but, that’s a problem for another hour - so he settles for gingerly using two pieces of thin stone as makeshift forceps, pulling the shard of stone out of the great laceration on Theo’s leg. He immediately applies pressure, then sets to patching him up and staunching the blood. 

_People are really very little other than convoluted tubes filled with important liquids,_ he thinks, as the hours tick by. Behind him, lava burbles and sprays steaming jets of white-hot molten mess across the cavern floor. As time passes, Lapin starts to notice the reddish glow of magic in the flow. Sparks of arcane energy crackle up every now and again, hideously burning in the air, and he winces, wondering if this is the mark of the Hungry One, some sort of strange response to the Fairy’s domain up above. Every so often, there is an earsplitting _crash,_ as a piece of popsicle or a candy stalagmite plummet from the black void of the ceiling down into the lava, shattering on impact. 

_The temple must be collapsing, now that she’s gone._

Lapin eventually moves Theo to what seems to be the least affected area, dragging the knight gingerly across the floor one painstaking inch at a time. He sets the man’s body down, flops down beside it, and waits, forcing himself to keep his eyes open. Sleep could kill, in this juncture. His own wounds from the battle are open, too, blood sizzling down onto the hot stone beneath. 

He does not cry - refuses to let the weakness win - but emptiness yawns within him like a great mouth nonetheless. Some tiny, selfish part of him wishes desperately that they had not won. That the Sugar Plum Fairy had not been hit by that arrow. That he was still possessed, filled from head to toe with the dire, dreadful magic - because at least it would mean he was _competent_ , and that he wasn't alone. Useful, and powerful, and not alone. 

***

An hour later, Theo slowly groans, turning over onto one side. Lapin’s heart jumps traitorously in his chest at the sound. Relief floods through him like an avalanche. 

_Thank you to whatever gods do or do not exist for letting him live._

“Surviving yet again, I see, Sir Theobald,” he says, instead of voicing the thought.

There is no response for a long moment as Theo pushes himself up onto his elbows, not without effort. He wipes dust and grit from his eyes, wincing at the movement of his leg. “Lapin.” 

“You could have died, you know,” Lapin says, and immediately has to rein in the catch of emotion at the back of his throat which threatens to fade into his tone. A dreadful betrayal of his vocal faculties. “And who will protect the princesses now that you have made this... _detrimental_ decision?” 

Theo coughs, once. It is a distressingly wet cough, but if the man is bleeding internally, there’s nothing Lapin can do for him, magicless as he now is. “So we’re at the bottom of the cavern, I take it. Not dead in the mouth of the Hungry One.” 

“Actually…” Lapin gestures vaguely towards the lava, and the red sparks of magic dancing within its threads. “I think the answer might be a combination of both. This place does seem to be distinctly magical.” 

There is a pause as the knight glances around, taking in the dimensions of the underground cavern and then the infinite blackness above it. “No getting out the way we came, then.” 

“No,” Lapin says softly. “And I do not have magic anymore. So even if it was less than a thousand feet up to the top, I couldn’t dimension-door you there.” 

He glances down towards the lava, mentally charting a path through the brightly glowing strands towards the far wall. One of the gaps in the cavern looks particularly large, large enough to be some sort of passageway. A prudent route to go. Theo shifts beside him, but he ignores the knight’s expression, instead and lowering himself down off of the ledge onto the rough pumice. The pieces of stone crack and crumble beneath his feet.

“Are you coming, Sir Theobald?” he asks. “I think the only way out is through, as it were. The temple is starting to crumble up above us. I’d prefer not to be there when it falls entirely.” 

“A valid preference.” 

Theo descends the ledge, nearly slipping on the last step. Lapin catches him by the arm, sets the knight upright on his feet, even as the effort reopens one of the old slices in his palm, spraying a few drops of blood into the smoky air. 

In response, Theo gently takes his wrist, examining the lacerations with a frown. “No bandages for yourself, I see?” 

The smoke washes into Lapin’s eyes. They sting fiercely, and he pulls his hand away, takes the first few steps into the hellish wasteland. The web of lava is navigable enough, it seems, if he keeps his eyes down towards the earth, focusing on his bare feet, which are blistering slightly from the heat. “We don’t have time for that.” 

Any words Theo says are blown away in the gathering wind and steam as Lapin sets off into the lava. Sparks of hungry red magic dance around him in the small gouts of flame. They brush his skin occasionally, and he feels something phantom within him try to respond, to analyze. But the empty cavity in his mind only yawns wider in response. 

***

It takes the better part of half an hour to pick a painstaking trail through the lava to the rock wall beyond. Lapin forges on ahead, but keeps a keen focus on Theo a few steps behind him, making sure the knight isn’t accidentally heading into danger somehow. When they reach the opposing wall, the large opening looms high above them, a good twenty or thirty feet off the ground. 

_Well, that’s unfortunate._ Lapin moves to hoist himself up, his limbs already aching. A minute later, though, there is a faint mumble of arcane words, and Theo’s eyes start to glow a gentle blue-green. The knight bends down and jumps, the leap aided by one of his spells. His armor doesn’t weigh him down in the slightest as he lands, feather-light, on the ledge, disappearing into the darkness above Lapin’s head.

“Impressive,” Lapin calls up. “Is there anything dangerous up there, Sir Theobald?” 

A moment passes, then Theo looks over the edge of the ledge, bending down to one knee. He still carries the shattered remnants of Swirlwarden, strapped dutifully to his arm, and Lapin bites his lip. _What a waste._

“Just a pathway, and a little light,” Theo says. “I could be mistaken, but I think I can see a few stars.” 

“Well, we were both passed out for a fair while. I would expect that the Rocks family has left by now, especially with the debris we’re starting to get down here.” 

As if to prove Lapin’s point, somewhere far off in the cavern, there is a flash of purple, and a distant popsicle platform plummets down into the lava, splashing it distressingly high. The earth below Lapin’s feet rumbles softly in response, and he has to concentrate on maintaining his footing for a moment. 

“Lapin, I’ll cast Jump on you too,” Theo calls out. “No sense in climbing. You’re just going to get more hurt.” 

Lapin doesn’t have time to protest before there is a click of gauntleted fingers above him, and the arcane syllables repeat. He stretches out his arms to see them wreathed in blue-green sparks. The magic is shockingly warm, but comforting despite everything, like the last rays of summer, beating gently down on his head. 

“ _Fine,”_ he mutters irately. It only takes the barest pressure of his feet on the pumice to send him floating up into the air, landing gently next to Theo. The spell fizzles and crackles around both of them for a minute. Lapin looks back at the cavern, catching another splash of lava as a faraway stalagmite plummets to its scalding doom. 

“We should get going,” he says, turning back to the Lord Commander. 

“Lapin, we should rest a moment.” 

“Where is the sense in that?” 

Theo steps a little ways into the dark passage of hewn stone. It is a tunnel, Lapin sees now, and there is certainly freedom at the end. The cool, leaf-scented breeze blowing down towards them is proof enough of that. But no matter how hard he looks down the tunnel, he cannot see any of the light that the knight claims is there. Instead, all that there is is Theo, face stormier than the Dairy Sea and jaw set in a way that normally preceded bitter arguments, back when they were in constant conflict at Castle Candy. Back before Lapin died. Back before everything changed. 

“We should _talk_ ,” Theo says carefully. 

“About _what,_ Sir Theobald?” 

“Lapin, you are…” Theo searches for words for a moment. A vein throbs prominently in his forehead. “You were possessed. You were under the Fairy’s control. For weeks. The last I saw of you - _actual_ you - you were heading off to the library. Then, next thing we know, Calroy’s men are advancing, and we’re running from the castle by the skin of our teeth, and by the time we found you and the children, it was clear that something had happened. That she’d….taken over.” 

Shame floods back through Lapin in waves, the emotions he’s been trying to dampen returning in full force. There are no memories attached to the weeks after the attic, back in Dulcington. The time during which the Sugar Plum Fairy possessed him fully is blank and shimmering, an empty hole in his mind. But he can fill in the blanks well enough. Imagine the danger that he put them all in. 

“I am, Sir Theobald, infinitely sorry.” 

“I’m not asking you to _apologize._ Bulb, no.” Theo leans his head back against the stone. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” 

“Of course I did.” 

“You were possessed by an eldritch entity of untold power that has been manipulating people for centuries.” Blue-green magic sparks more adamantly around Theo’s form, as if in response to the slow emotion starting to burn behind all his words. “We don’t blame you for it. You weren’t in control. You had no say over what was happening. The fact that you survived at all is a miracle. The fact that she managed not to kill us through you is a second one.”

Lapin sits down slowly on the stone ledge. It seems the knight is not planning to move any time soon, so there’s really no point in fighting the man’s stubbornness. “I wasn’t particularly useful either way.” 

“You are not here because of _usefulness_.” 

“What are you talking about?” Lapin laughs at that, a soft laugh without much humor in it at all. He watches the lava bubble and boil, as far as the eye can see. It burns at his eyes, but he keeps them focused on the flames, even as they start to water. “Sir Theobald, it’s my _job_ . I _exist_ to protect and secure the safety of the Rocks family. That’s my purpose. There isn’t another one. And if I jeopardize that in any way - regardless of whose influence I was under at the time - I’ve failed.”

There is a rustle of air and metal as Theo inhales and exhales, exasperation filling his voice.

“Who gave you that job, Lapin? Why did you come to the Rocks family in the first place?” 

“The Sugar Plum Fairy.” 

“Yet you worked directly against her once her goal became to harm us, rather than protect us,” Theo says, and Lapin can tell the knight’s eyes are burning now, too, his determination to drive his point home painfully evident in every sentence. “And on that note - the Sugar Plum Fairy sent you to protect the _Rocks family_ , which includes neither me nor Liam Wilhelmina, if we’re being technical. Yet you died for the boy anyway, and nearly drowned yourself trying to get me out of the goddamn ocean.” 

“Of _course_ it includes both of you,” Lapin huffs. A little leftover spark of anger coils in his chest. “You are important people. Good people. You do not deserve to get hurt by the ways of the world.”

“ _So are you,_ ” Theo says. The Lord Commander sits down on the ledge beside him, as two more pieces of sugary stone drop into the cavern, sending lava splashing twenty feet into the air with a dissonant roar. “Yet you keep trying to wear yourself out, protecting us from everything you can. Are you _trying_ to get yourself killed, Lapin?” 

“No,” Lapin replies. “If I died again, I couldn’t be useful.” 

“ _Fuck usefulness_.” 

Lapin raises an eyebrow, swivels his head around to stare at the knight. _When was the last time Theo properly swore?_ _Amazing what a near-death experience will do to a person._

“Are you really so self-absorbed, Chancellor, as to think that Amethar and Ruby and Jet and Liam - and hell, even Cumulous - do not care about you?” Theo spits. “You’re one of our party. A trusted advisor and a true protector, but also a _friend_. If you’re counting me as a _“member of the royal family”_ under that definition, Lapin, you have to at _least_ do the courtesy of extending the same designation to yourself. You have been with the Rocks just as long as I have, if not longer.”

“That’s not how the royal family works,” Lapin says faintly. 

“Fuck how the royal family and decorum are _supposed_ to work.” Theo’s eyes are alight, sparks of red and blue magic reflecting in them as he speaks. His Jump spell still swirls around him, a cloak of arcane magic making the cavern hum. “The King =I’ve served my whole life has been excommunicated by the church. Liam’s entire family is wanted for heresy. The princesses’ future hangs in the balance. They might ascend the throne. Or Saccharina Frostwhip might. Or Candia might cease to exist entirely. We might all flee into the night and live our lives as pirates on the ocean. I don’t know. _None_ of us know. All that we can afford to believe in right now is one another.” 

Despite the blood and wounds scattered across the battered knight, Lapin thinks, he cannot remember a time when he has ever seen Sir Theobold look more.. _alive._ The sight is oddly entrancing. And a little comforting. _At least one of us feels up to a grandiose speech today._

“You are brilliant, Lapin,” Theo says, quiet but firm. “Brilliant, and brave, and sharp as the edge of a sword. And you could so easily be cruel, yet you insist on being kind at every turn.” 

“Not since returning from the dead. If you’ll note, I’ve been rather vicious to everyone.” 

“That wasn’t you.” 

“Maybe it was.” Lapin moves one corner of his mouth up in a brief smile, and nearly bites his tongue clean through at the pain that ensues. The Sugar Plum Fairy's grin, it seems, has left the skin on either side of his mouth bloody and raw enough that the very movement hurts. “I am….so tired, Theo. For _weeks_ , all I have been able to feel is anger and fear and ceaseless exhaustion. I do not know how much of that was her influence, and how much was just...me. And I am not comfortable with not knowing.” 

There is a long silence after that. It lingers long enough that Theo’s spell fizzles out into nothingness, the sparks finally dancing out into the cavern and dissipating into the air. 

“You might never know,” Theo says finally. He looks over at Lapin, the corner of his mouth twitching up in response. “But you don’t have to be alone while you figure it out. And besides, if anyone is smart enough to reinvent themselves, it’s you, Chancellor. I have faith in that.” 

Despite everything, something seals back together within Lapin’s heart. Its beating is rhythmic now, careful and reliable, a known quantity. The empty space where magic once resided no longer feels quite as yawning, though there’s no denying that it still hurts. The memories of the last few nights aboard the stolen schooner bubble back to his mind, floating calmly on the surface - the ease of simply existing in the same space as Sir Theobald. The reassurance that he was not alone in his fights against the dark things of the world. The comfort of it all. 

It would be nice, to have some sort of future. A world where he has time to spare, time to figure out who he can be, free of that damn fae. The thought aches, burns Lapin’s mind for thinking it, but only because it is so fragile, so tender. A hope so small and unsteady that to trust in it feels foolish beyond belief. 

The hope of having someone else there to trust in at all. 

_I’d be willing to be a little bit foolish, Theo, if you’re willing to put up with me regardless._

“You’re deeply preachy, you know that?” Lapin says instead, in place of the ridiculous, sentimental thought. But he is smiling again, despite the pain that burns his skin for doing so. “You’re far too generous for your own good.” 

“And you are a smug, stubborn, self-sacrificing genius,” Theo shoots back at him. For a moment, the warmth of the spell returns, beating deep within Lapin’s chest, though there is no arcane magic left to cause it. “We are as we have always been.” 

“When did you become so wise in the ways of my psyche?” 

“I told you.” Theo stands, offering Lapin a hand. He takes it almost without thinking, lets the knight pull him to his feet. “I think about the cathedral all the time. All my life, I thought I’d die taking a hit for Amethar, you know. It was always there in my thoughts, at the back of my mind. A known certainty. But then I watched you die, and then I didn’t have the luxury of grief and self-sacrifice. I had to do what you would have done if it had been me under the mace - think smart, be cunning. Plan and scheme and get us all out alive.” 

“I’m touched,” Lapin says, brushing the dust and dirt of the ledge from his robes. 

_You wished to mourn for me. You tried to emulate me._ Honors he had not expected.

“I thought a lot about your perspective on the whole matter, in the hours after that,” Theo replies. “I figured it was a fair amount like mine. And...please, just know that it’s not selfish of us to choose to live. We deserve that much. And more, when it comes to it. 

Lapin takes a few steps into the tunnel, but stops as light glints off the broken fragments of Swirlwarden, still dangling from Theo’s arm, catching his eye. Magic no longer glimmers around the edges of the shield. It hangs dead and cold - irreplaceable. Unfixable. _Fuck._

“Your shield’s destroyed ,” he says dimly, still trying to find something to apologize for, to be responsible for, something solid to clutch onto. “You jumped down after me; you took that falling damage for me. Enough to break Swirlwarden. I’m sorry.” 

Theo shakes his head. “It’s just an object. Shields are meant to protect, and it let me protect you, so I don’t regret a thing.” 

“I….”

“Lapin, I _care_ about you.” With a quick motion, Theo unbuckles the remaining leather straps on Swirlwarden and throws the remnants of the shield out into the lava before Lapin can protest. They splash down into the belly of the cavern, clattering against the stones, and there is a brief hiss of lava as the fire surges up to devour them. 

When the knight turns back to look at Lapin, he is still smiling. A smile of frustration, but also of slight _amusement,_ damn him. “It’s probably about time you came to terms with that fact, Chancellor. I doubt it’s going to change anytime soon.”

Lapin’s mouth opens, but words are not coming to it with any particular alacrity, so he shuts it again, feeling flustered and frustrated both. 

“Come on,” Theo says, and without further ado, the Lord Commander walks past him, heading deep into the tunnel with a determined stride. “We’re going home.” 

Past the knight's head, Lapin sees stars wink cheerfully into existence in the faraway night sky. 

“Fascinating,” he mutters to himself, and follows Theo out towards freedom. 


	9. Sign of Ill Omen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Eldritch Invocation; prerequisite 5th level. You can cast Bestow Curse once using a warlock spell slot. You can't do so again until you finish a long rest._

The journey back to Candia takes the better part of three weeks. The first one is spent entirely navigating through the mountains, as Theo tries to get them back to the base of Saccharina Frostwhip’s marauders. It isn’t too much of a surprise when they finally stumble back to the complex web of caves to find them entirely abandoned. The throne room where Saccharina once must have sat is empty. The braziers are dim and lifeless, the only light the unsteady flicker of the torch that Lapin carries in his aching left arm, the broken right one dangling limply at his side. 

Theo sits on the steps up to the throne for a minute, catching his breath. “They must have returned here after the Temple started to collapse, and headed to Candia.” 

“Do you think they left a note?” Lapin asks, scuffing at the dirt on the stone floor. “It would certainly be lovely if we had something to go off of.” 

“I mean, we can certainly look for one,” Theo replies. “Or supplies. Or _anything.”_

The supply closets prove entirely empty, too. Dismally so. But after another half hour of wandering the cave system, Lapin stumbles into a small rock-hewn room, thick iron bars ringing off two of its four walls. Recognition twinges sharp and sweet in his chest, and a faint taste of sugar stains his tongue for a moment, a phantom memory. Saccharina, crouched down by the bars, staring at him with an unblinking gaze. 

_So I_ can _remember some of the things that happened while she was possessing me. Good to know._

On the floor of the jail cell lies a small folded piece of paper. Lapin automatically twitches a finger, planning to retrieve it with Mage Hand, but the effort makes him wince, hollowness gaping open in his mind. Theo joins him a minute or two later. He clearly notices the mistake, but is kind enough not to say anything, instead reaching the corner of his sword through the bars and gingerly tugging the paper closer, flicking it up for Lapin to unfold. The handwriting is unmistakably Ruby’s, a messy scrawl of loops and lines that Lapin recognizes from one too many overdue homework assignments. 

_We miss you both so much. We hope you're not dead.  
If you survived, somehow - we’re heading back to Castle Candy. L’s dad is meeting us on the way. We’re going to take our home back. _

“Duke Jawbreaker,” Theo says, reading the note over Lapin’s shoulder as he stares down at the words. “So they managed to get to him in time.” 

Lapin fills in details from the stories Theo has told him over the past days of trudging through the forest. The siege of Buzzybrook. The reports that Joren Jawbreaker was being chased there with the remnants of his forces. So the Rocks family has both the marauders and the Jawbreaker army - and the Order of the Spinning Star, to boot. “They’ll have a fair number of people. They might succeed at routing Calroy.” 

Theo’s lips curl at the name of the traitorous Lord. “Here’s hoping they do.” 

They set off, deeper into the dark grey forests that speckle the sides of the Great Stone Candy Mountains like new-fallen snow. Guilt settles in Lapin’s chest as each day goes by - frustration at his lack of spells to heal them faster, or to speed their progress. Theo’s wounds threaten to reopen every time he moves, and despite Lapin’s best ministrations, there are more than a few times where they have to stop early for the night because the knight is threatening to pass out from blood loss. 

“Stop blaming yourself,” he says, staring at Lapin, each time he catches Lapin’s look of barely contained sorrow at the bloodied bandages around his leg and arms. “This was my choice, and I do not regret it. And we’re both alive to tell the tale.” 

“You really shouldn’t have jumped after me.” 

“I could have said the same thing at you for _days_ after you decided to throw yourself into the Dairy Sea and nearly _drown_.”

They replay the argument, bickering casually evening after evening, as Lapin finds firewood and sets traps around their makeshift camps, as Theo charts the stars and tries to work out which route their course needs to take next. It becomes a careful routine, after a while. Less an actual debate than a gentle reminder that the other is still there, still present, still alive enough to argue with. 

The worst night, for Lapin, comes fifteen or sixteen days into the journey - the last night before breaching the edge of the forest and emerging out into the scattered provinces of northern Candia. They make camp beneath a dark ridge of rock, hoping to shelter the light of their small fire from any prying spies for Calroy’s forces. Rain begins to torrent down a few hours into the night, and the rock overhang suddenly serves double-purpose, letting them huddle beneath it for shelter. 

Theo puts up an alarm spell and promptly offers to take first watch. Lapin, for once, agrees, and settles down with his back against the rock face, squeezing his eyes shut. He has been able to sleep, fitfully, since emerging from the Ice Cream Temple, but has forced himself to take watches until he is teetering on the edge of perpetual exhaustion anyway. If he gets tired enough, he seems to be able to trick his brain away from dreams. Fear still lingers at the edges of his mind - the residual terror that the Sugar Plum Fairy will possess him again, somehow, even though he knows in his heart that her essence has dissipated, that her magic no longer infuses his veins. 

Unfortunately, even without magic, his mind proves quite adequate at crafting picture-perfect nightmares anyway. 

In one of them, Lapin tears his way through the castle, killing the children, killing their parents and their protectors, till red rivulets run down from the battlements and drip into the moat. In another one, he simply sits paralyzed in a pew of the cathedral, watching as Liam falls under Keradin’s mace, again and again. 

He is less ashamed of those, though, than the one which causes him to finally wake with a start. It is a simple dream, a dream of the very place they are encamped in. Except, in the dream, he is all alone. The absence of another soul freezes him in place, petrifies him with an overwhelming sadness so deep and vicious that Lapin wonders if he is drowning. 

There is no rock sheltering him from this storm. Instead, drops of bloody rain start to fall from the sky in a soft, gentle patter, and slowly puddle in the earth around him. The ground softens and softens till he begins to sink into it. Till blood chokes up his lungs and stops up his throat, and he gasps and gasps eternally for air. 

Theo finds him as he jerks awake, startled at the sudden presence of oyxgen in his lungs. The knight is, blessedly, kind enough not to comment, but sits down beside Lapin, finishes rewrapping one of the bandages around his massive hand, and extends it out in a silent offer. “Are you all right?” 

“I am _wonderful_ , Sir Theobald,” Lapin mutters sourly. He does not take the hand, but leans into it a little, letting his shoulder sag against the Lord Commander’s. “I have rarely been better, in fact. I have simply come to discover that I do not enjoy the prospect of _drowning,_ a fact which I'm sure puts me in the company of most of the world and is not particularly _exceptional._ ”

The rain beats down in an eerie tattoo on the worn grey leaves of the mountain trees outside. Lapin breathes for a few minutes, lets his heart rate settle back to something approximating normality. _Oh, damn him for being so agreeable to be around._

“There’s nothing wrong with having nightmares, you know,” Theo says, staring out at the rain outside. “I mean. Obviously, I wouldn’t wish them on either of us. But they mean we’re alive.” 

“That is oddly comforting.” 

They sit in silence for hours more, until the Bulb finally rises and the rain slowly dies down to a dim splattering of drops onto the plants. Theo dozes off, and Lapin pokes him roughly with his shoulder, makes some vague comment about needing to travel further. But eventually, he too sinks into the rock and lets his eyes drift shut again, with a little less trepidation. 

His dreams this time are calmer, quieter. He finds himself wandering the battlements of Castle Candy in the early morning hours, waiting for the Bulb to rise. 

It is peaceful. Gentle. Kinder than he deserves, maybe. But that doesn’t stop it from feeling right. 

***

Five more days, and they finally, _finally_ arrive on the shoreline of the Great Cola River. Two more days after that, and Dulcington appears over the horizon. 

The changes in the sweet little town are evident from the moment that Lapin’s foot touches its cobblestones. Lines of smoke trail up into the cold winter sky as far as the eyes can see. Buildings on either side of the street are badly burned, or smashed to bits, or both. Pieces of jagged metal and thick ribbons of oil are strewn haphazardly over everything. Few townsfolk openly are walking around, but after a few minutes, Lapin is able to pick out clearer signs of life - people watching from windows, children sitting on front steps. Everyone looks hunted, as if waiting for an apocalypse to arrive. 

Lapin sticks close to the sides of the street for a few more minutes, trying to gather more details, until Theo grabs the cuff of his robes and pulls him into a side alley that is overhung by trailing flower boxes of wisteria and lavender. Lapin crosses his arms, looking around warily for eavesdroppers. “So it’s already happened.” 

“The invasion. Yes.” 

“I think it’s safe to assume that it did not go well.”

“Astute observation,” Theo bites back, a little snappishly. Lapin hears the faintest edge of a tremor at the edge of the man’s words. He forges onwards. Action will help the knight, even if it turns out in the next few hours that there was no point in their acting at all. The royal family might be dead, or they might not. But either way, it is imperative to know. 

“We are both distinctly recognizable like this.” Lapin gestures disdainfully to both of their bodies. Theo’s armor is all but useless with the number of punctures it contains. Lapin’s robes are covered with blood stains and burn marks from his possession, ground deep into the threads of the fabric despite the many times in the past weeks that he’s tried to wash them out. “We need disguises, and we need information.” 

“If you have a plan for how to obtain both - without just doubling down on the problem and being recognized as we accomplish it - I’m all ears,” Theo says. “I can think of a few, but I don’t particularly like any of them.” 

“Run them by me anyway. Just for my amusement.” 

“Stealing,” Theo says, without a moment’s hesitation. Lapin feels his eyebrows try to make their way up his forehead and flee his face entirely. _The Lord Commander really isn’t as lawful as he likes to pretend. Fascinating._ “Or finding safe taverns, places where the Tartsguard had a hold. Or the church vestibule.” 

“Great minds, Commander. We think alike." Lapin glances over at the spire of the small Bulbian chapel, peeking over the rooftops a few streets away. “Though, I’d actually opt to combine all three, in some regard. Steal clothes from the church, then rove the town for information. And I think it should probably be just me who goes out.” 

“Lapin, for the last time -” 

“In this case, Sir Theobald,” Lapin says, allowing himself to smirk ever so slightly, “it’s less about your safety, and more about my skill. We need to make sure we don’t both get captured, for a start. Following that? I’m a very good liar. I’m _excellent_ at passing unnoticed in dangerous environments. And out of the two of us, I will hazard a guess that I am the only one who has robbed a church before.”

Theo just gapes at him, and Lapin employs all his skill at deception to not laugh a _little_ wickedly at the man’s shock. It almost works, too. 

“I will meet you back here in two hours or less,” he whispers, turning on his heel and walking away with just a little bit of flair in his step. “If you could find us a place to make a more appropriate plan, that would be greatly appreciated.” 

It is easy for Lapin to gauge the smartest route to the church, the path that will take him most easily around to the back. It has been months since he’s visited the small parish, true, but he can recall the location of the back entrance, and the distinct simplicity of the lock. Even without lockpicks, it shouldn’t be _too_ hard to crack. 

***

“ _When did you rob a church?”_ Theo hisses at Lapin when he sneaks back into the flowery alcove two hours and twenty-five minutes later. The church lock had been, in fact, distinctly rusty. And, luckily, there had been more than just Bulbian robes to take, although he had taken a few for old times sake. Instead, he is now clad in light armor - badly oiled leather, unlikely to stand up to more than a few hits of a sword, but a few hits could be the difference between life and death - and a ragged cloak, with another one tucked under his arm for Theo. Hopefully it will be enough to conceal the distinctive golden armor, at the very least. 

“I was a child,” Lapin replies, dropping the cloak in a heap at Theo’s feet. “I was very hungry for a lot of things. Knowledge, admittedly, but mostly food. And funnily enough, Bulbian churches do not _actually_ feed the poor who come to beg on their doorsteps, despite what they say to the public, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.”

Theo picks up the cloak, swirls it effortlessly around his shoulders, and flips the hood up. His eyes gleam grey and green beneath the fabric, but Lapin is pleased to find he judged its size correctly. The tips of the Lord Commander’s boots are just barely visible beneath the trailing edges of the cloth, if he keeps it pulled around him tight enough. The armor will be less visible, if no less noisy. 

Lapin nods, once, curtly. “Well. It does the job. Did you find us...” 

Theo, in response, simply walks around to the backside of the building they have been standing beneath and pushes on the rickety wooden door. It swings open, and Lapin can see the hinges are half-eaten through with wear, a trail of ivy curving around the edge of the doorframe. 

“It's abandoned,” the knight says. “I was distracted enough by your apparently _lengthy_ history of blasphemy that I remained here long enough to hear the wind whistling in through the cracks.” 

Almost before the door has closed behind them, Lapin pulls a thick sheaf of papers from where they have been tucked into his belt and throws them to the floor. He feels his heart accelerate as he starts to spread them out - but for once, it’s a change in pace that he doesn’t have to run from. Determination. Grim determination. And joy at his news, bleak though it may be. 

“Calroy took the royal family prisoner,” he says, and fans out four Wanted posters, stolen from taverns all around Dulcington. The first two depict him and Theo, their heads placed above painted block letters calling for their arrests. They are painfully realistic drawings, and Lapin feels a twinge of pain at the remembrance that Calroy - Calroy, of all people - had had the cruelty to turn against them all.

_The children really loved him. This must be breaking their hearts._

The third and fourth Wanted posters, however, are different. One shows the head of Ruby Rocks, her face curled into a frown. The second depicts the silhouette of a dragon, outlined against a cloudy sky. Unlike the ones for Lapin, Theo, and Ruby - which promise monetary reward for capture or murder - the one for the dragon has a large inscription at the top. _If sighted, do not harm, under order of the Bulbian church._

Theo kneels down, examining the posters. “Everyone but her? How do you know they’re not just dead?” 

“I took so long to return because I noticed that there was an inn a little way beyond the church, housing garrisoned soldiers. Soldiers of House Cruller.” It had taken a significant amount of time to pick a path across the rooftops of the town - but it had given Lapin a chance to eavesdrop on the inn’s balcony, his back pressed up against a chimney directly above it. His right arm burns when he reaches towards the posters, shuffling them in place. It still has not fully healed from all its recent injuries, and his rooftop shenanigans probably aren’t assisting.

“The royal family attempted to attack, but soldiers intercepted Cumulous and Liam as they took down one of the crossbows on the battlements. Saccharina fell from the sky, somehow - straight into one of Calroy’s garrisons, who just barely managed to restrain her. And Amethar, Caramelinda, and Jet got surprised by Belizabeth Brassica’s forces advancing in from the east, over the river.” 

“The Bulbian _church_ is here?” 

“Yes.” Lapin grimaces. “And the Ceresian army.” 

“Well, then. That’s just _wonderful_ ,” Theo says, and Lapin can see the knight sink down a few more inches towards the floor, the energy deflating from him like a limp balloon. Anger burns in Lapin’s chest again, white-hot and razor-sharp. But this time, it doesn’t feel so wrong, so corrosive. It is no longer the anger _at_ Theo, the frustration that had seeped into him as the knight attempted to help him aboard the schooner. Instead, it is simply fury that the knight should have to feel this way about his family at all. 

“Here is what we know.” He pulls out a fifth crumpled sheet of parchment, snatched from the balcony with his knife the minute that the guards moved away and retreated to the warmth of their indoor fire. “The troops have been given orders to spread out around the town over the rest of the afternoon, and find places from which to defend against a second wave of incoming invaders. Duke Jawbreaker’s people. It seems he, at least, didn’t get captured. Hopefully, if Ruby’s not dead, she found her way back to him. Along with...Theo, might you happen to know why Calroy Cruller and Belizabeth Brassica are looking for a _dragon_? I’m afraid I’m at a loss.”

A ghost of a smile flits across Theo’s face like a crack in marble. “Saccharina found an egg, while we were fighting in the Ice Cream Temple. I saw her slip it into her pocket. Perhaps they began to raise it while we were, ah, _away_.” 

“Yet another wayward royal child to protect,” Lapin says, and cheers internally when that gets a small laugh out of Theo. He unveils the final sheet of paper - a carefully drawn map of Dulcington and the castle beyond, etched out with a piece of crumbling charcoal he broke off of one of the ruined buildings. 

“So. Sir Theo. You are a tactician. Jawbreaker is coming back around to attack this evening. The royal family is apparently very much captive in the castle, where Calroy still holds sway. Where are we most needed?” 

Theo leans back and cocks his head, studying the map for a long moment. Lapin watches his lips moving as he mutters silently to himself, his eyes sketching trails across the sketched landscapes.

“We cannot do anything measurable for Dulcington,” Theo says finally, his voice heavy. “The best choice would be to get into the castle and get the royals free. That’s what Jawbreaker is least likely to accomplish - and that prevents them from becoming bargaining chips on Calroy’s part, if Jawbreaker actually makes it to his front doors.” 

“All right.” Lapin pulls the final stolen items out of the pocket of his new cloak. Churches are not the typical place one would think to look for weapons - but Bulbian churches are typically more than they appear. And Lapin has given too many lectures about how to treat heretics over the years to believe that the church in town would be _entirely_ without defenses. The weapons box below the altar had been sparse enough to almost make him despair, but luckily, there had been a few daggers left that the troops didn’t take.   
  
He taps the two plainly sheathed throwing knives against his palm, and looks up at Theo. “And do you have any masterful plans that will aid our entry?”

The smile that flits across Theo’s mouth this time stays for good.

“Let me tell you about how I got Queen Caramelinda out of the castle in one piece when Calroy betrayed us.” 

***

The journey to the underground tunnel system goes shockingly smoothly. Lapin and Theo make it to the edge of town, then double back around through the woods, staying well out of sight of the troops lining the docks with spears at the ready to intercept Joren Jawbreaker’s ships. On their way to the eastern side of the castle, where the moat leads into the underground maze of tunnels that Theo swears will still be there, they pass close to the location of the circle of standing stones. Lapin cannot resist taking a look, detouring from the path and peeking around the trunk of a massive oak tree to see if they are still there. 

The clearing that he knows so well - where he came for rituals for years and years, where the ground turned jagged and tried to devour him only a month or two ago - is empty. Where the stones once stood, a faint pink powder dusts the grass, a shimmering coating lying gently on the dark soil. 

Lapin searches his heart for some measure of pity for the Fairy, but all he finds is exhaustion, still lingering in his bones and the corners of his mouth. 

_Farewell, o brave one,_ he says in his mind, though he knows she cannot hear, and bows rather mockingly to the empty air. _Thank you for absolutely nothing._

It takes twenty more minutes before Theo motions for them to stop and wait. The eastern wall of Castle Candy towers up above them; atop its battlements, torches are visible, and archers line the walls. On the bright side, their attention seems to be primarily focused on the drawbridge at the front of the castle. On the downside, Lapin can see no underground entrances in sight, and the wall of the castle towers hundreds of feet tall, sheer and imposing. 

He taps Theo on the shoulder, as they hover at the edge of the treeline. “Anything you need from me, Lord Commander?” 

“Well, we have a slight problem. The entrance to the passage is in the moat,” Theo whispers, gesturing towards the wide ring of water that surrounds the exterior of the castle. “Fortunately, I’m willing to bet they haven’t discovered the door - it’s well hidden in the rockwork. But _unfortunately_ , that means they’ve filled the moat. Amethar never felt that it was a necessary precaution, but Calroy must be panicked.” 

Lapin’s heart sinks at the realization. “We’re going to have to swim.”

“If you want, I can go on ahead, and return for you.” Theo’s gaze holds no judgement, just careful assessment. “But if you’re coming with me, then I promise I’ll get you to the tunnels.” 

The chance to say yes to the offer is more tempting than Lapin would like, but he swallows it down. “I’d rather we not make too many trips - we might catch their attention if we do.”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
“I’ll be fine, Sir Theobald. I’m sure you will guide me safely.” 

They set off across the grass at a dead run, sprinting to the edge of the moat, where rocks are set deep into the ground, their edges jagged and sharp to ward off armies. There are a few agonizing moments where Theo searches for a gap in the ring, while Lapin huddles behind one of the stones, hoping against hope that a stray guard doesn’t choose to look their way. His armor feels dangerously frail, despite it arguably providing ten times more protection than his robes ever did. He tucks the daggers into his sleeves for safekeeping.

“Over here _,”_ Theo whispers, and Lapin follows the knight without hesitation through the sharp edges of the rock ring, feeling them graze a few stray hairs from his head as he passes. There is no ground on the other side, only water, and only the fear of the guards above reminds Lapin to slip into it silently, without so much as a splash. Ahead of him, he sees Theo’s eyes gleam green as he looks back to ensure that Lapin is safe. 

“Go ahead _,”_ Lapin whispers back. Without hesitation, Theo dives into the murky water. 

_The armor weighing him down this time is actually a good thing._

A slightly unhinged laugh threatens to bubble out of Lapin’s lungs at the thought. There is no storm, the air is calm as can be - yet this could not feel more similar to the battle on the Dairy Seas. The memory of the crushing pressure of the waves threatens to overwhelm him, but he takes a deep breath, then a second one. 

_This will not be like before._

And Theo has promised, after all. 

He dives, straight into the embrace of the moat, and opens his eyes, fighting the instinct that yells at him to keep them shut. Everything is made of misty shadows from the silt filtering through the water, but Lapin kicks downward, towards where he can see Theo’s armor glowing gold as the cloak billows away from his body in the ripples of the watery trench. 

As he reaches the very bottom of the moat where sand and coarse rocks form a tight-packed floor, Theo finishes shoving aside a large slab of stone. Below it, a trapdoor is set at an angle into the wall of the castle. As Lapin reaches him, the knight yanks on the ring and hauls it open. They tumble through the small opening together, followed by a great wave of water - but almost as soon as Theo’s feet touch the ground, he stands, turns, and slams the trapdoor shut in one fluid motion, cutting the wave off at its peak.

Lapin coughs, feeling vaguely as if someone has put his soul on an ironing board and taken out their frustrations with a bucket of boiling acid. “That could have gone worse.” 

“Are you _ever_ optimistic, Chancellor?” 

“No.” Lapin shakes his head from side to side, blinks the last few flakes of silt away and stares down the rough-hewn tunnel ahead of them, snaking its way steadily upwards towards the castle. “Now. Where do we go next?” 

***

The tunnel finally lets them out on the second floor of the castle. Theo exits the trapdoor first, but instead of a momentary silence and a call for Lapin to come up, there is a sudden cry, and the sounds of a struggle. 

Lapin forces his way up the last few steps of the ladder, drawing a dagger, and emerges into a small storage room. Its door is, blessedly, closed - as Theo is standing in the center of the room, clasping a guard in a desperate headlock, and such a sight would presumably not play well with the majority of people inside Castle Candy. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Lapin whispers, as some sort of exasperated prayer to nonexistent deities, force of habit winning over actual belief. He flips the dagger around in his right hand and sharply bashes it into the temple of the guard, who goes limp a second later. Pain flares up his arm, the barely healed bones cracking at the brute force; he bites his lip to keep from yelping out in pain. 

“Not bad.” Theo carefully lowers the body to the ground. “And now we face the problem of where to go to find the royal family.” 

Lapin keeps his arm close to his chest, but bends down and rifles through the guard’s pockets and belt with his left hand. It doesn’t take too long to find what he’s looking for - a key ring, dozens of small bits of metal dangling off the end. He stares at it a second, then closes his eyes, flipping through years of memory, decades of paranoid practice. _Finally, at least some of it pays off._

“Someone’s in the dungeon. And someone’s probably in the throne room, as well.” 

“Unless you’ve acquired magic powers again via sheer force of will, I’m not following the train of logic,” Theo says. 

“The key ring’s missing two keys.” Lapin holds it up in front of his face, jingling it for effect. “If I was running a coup and had the royal family imprisoned, I would make sure that I was the only one who had the keys to their whereabouts, so that no guards could betray me. Backstabbers are always the ones most conscious of getting stabbed in the back.” 

“Last time I checked, the key rings weren’t _labeled_.” 

“No need.” Lapin palms the keys and searches through the rest of the guard’s things. There isn’t much on the man, but he pockets a length of wire, probably intended as a makeshift garrote. It might be useful; every little bit helps. “I have all the castle key orders memorized. I have for years.” 

Theo takes the guard’s crossbow, shaking his head. “I really shouldn’t be surprised. And yet, somehow I am.” 

“I’m a heretic and a master of manipulation, Sir Theobald,” Lapin says softly, stepping over the body and opening the door a crack. “I have made so many paranoid preparations over the years that I don't remember half of them.” 

“Bullshit, Lapin. Your memory’s far too good for that.” 

“Yes. I was lying for dramatic effect.” There are no further guards visible in the corridor - a small blessing, though they could always be patrolling on rote. Lapin thinks for a second, then tosses the key ring to Sir Theobald. “We’re likely going to have to split up.” 

“I know.”

“I was thinking I’d head to the throne room.” At least one route from the second floor to the first will bypass the majority of prying eyes, unless Calroy Cruller has somehow decided to block off the old dumbwaiter routes from King Jadain’s era. Lapin takes a deep breath, and gazes at Theo for a precious moment, trying to memorize the man. Just in case. “Will you be able to make it to the dungeons and back, Sir Theobald?” 

“Yes. Hopefully.” Theo clips the crossbow to his belt and finishes wringing out his cloak, then whips the damp fabric back around his shoulders. “And to clarify, if one of us gets back here with some of the family and the other does not…” 

“Then we leave each other behind, Sir Theobald.” Lapin smiles at the man. For once, the action does not hurt to perform. “I would expect nothing less. We have our duties, as we always have.” 

Theo steps up to join Lapin at the door, checking that the coast is clear. Carefully, the knight pushes it open; the hinges barely even squeak. He glances right, then left. When he turns around, Lapin expects him to say something tactical, something relevant to the inevitable danger they are both headed into. 

What he does _not_ expect is for Theo to take Lapin’s hand in his own, raise it to his lips, and gently kiss Lapin’s knuckles. The world spins on its axis, burns up in the light of the endless Bulb. 

Theo releases his hand, after seconds or maybe centuries have passed, smiles at him, and steps out into the hall. The knight disappears around the corner, long before Lapin can say a single word in response - though, admittedly, his mind seems to have melted, so the response would likely not have been worthy of speech anyway. 

Lapin spares five precious, dangerous seconds to linger in the door and stare wordlessly at his knuckles, heart racing, before the faint groan of the unconscious guard behind him propels him into action. 

_Focus._ There will be time to analyze the mysteries of the Lord Commander later. Hopefully. If he can make it to the throne room and back in one piece. 

***

The doors of the throne room are, unsurprisingly, locked. Lapin presses a careful ear to the crack between them, but can hear no sound emanating from beyond. The corridor is almost painfully exposed, sitting at an intersection of hallways with a myriad paths leading off in different directions. But, blessedly, no guards seem to be posted below the flickering torches that have been placed in sconces along the lengths of the walls.

Reaching into his pocket, Lapin bends the razor wire into a sharp hook, and applies it and the tip of the dagger to the great bronzed locking mechanism. _I’ve already improvised my way through one lock. It would be wonderful to keep the streak going._

Footsteps echo down the hall, heading his way. The latch clicks open. No time to think. Lapin slips through the door and shuts it behind him. 

The throne room is dim, no braziers lit along its sides. At the far end, the throne of Candia sits; to its right, there is a small doorway, leading into the rest of the castle. Great stone statues line the room's two sides - not the figures of Amethar’s sisters, whose memorials are in the chapel, but of very similar make, depicting past kings of the realm. Lapin slinks through their shadows, searching for any signs of life. There are no archers hidden by the ceiling, nor soldiers watching through the tall side windows. Everything is eerily silent. 

He is finally rewarded when he rounds the last statue, an effigy of King Jadain, to find King Amethar lying on the ground, his hands chained and padlocked to the feet of the former monarch. Amethar stirs and Lapin throws caution aside, letting his feet clatter against the dark purple stone of the throne room floor as he rushes over and starts pick the lock on the king’s restraints. 

“L-Lapin,” Amethar mumbles, his eyes going wide. There is a vicious gash across his neck, Lapin notes, and days-old blood crusts in the corner of his eye, so dark it looks almost black. The padlock is rusted in its chain. Lapin tries to lever it apart with the dagger, to no avail. 

“I hear your plans failed rather spectacularly, my king,” Lapin says, checking the place where the chains loop through a small gap at the base of the statue. Perhaps there will be a weak point here instead. “You really should bring me along on more missions. My paranoia might help you in the future.”

“You were last seen falling to your likely death,” Amethar grits out. “Forgive me for not enlisting your help.”

The chains go through a metal loop, which Lapin doesn’t trust himself to break. But there is a small gap at the base of the loop, forming it into a slight hook. He flips the dagger around, studies the angle for a second, then wages the pommel under the hook and leverages it upwards. Not particularly far. But high enough that he is able to pull Amethar’s chains out from under it a moment later. The king slowly stands. Manacles still clamp tight around his wrists, but his eyes blaze like vengeful coals. His armor has been taken, as has his sword, but Lapin can see determination laced through the crags of his face, and the way that the man has grown, even in the past months, strikes him as remarkable. _He truly has learned to be a leader._

“I trust Sir Theobald is with you?” Amethar asks, a note of hope in his voice. Lapin nods in response.

“Is the rest of the family in the dungeons, my king? Why are you here alone?” 

“I was with them until recently.” Amethar starts gathering up the chains, wrapping them around his fists. “I got knocked out; I, uh, just woke up a couple of minutes ago. I think I was being brought up here to see -”

The door to the right of the throne slowly creaks open, the old wood groaning on its hinges.

Lapin whips around, a dagger already in his hand, as a Belizabeth Brassica steps into the throne room. Her golden gown swishes lightly across the floor; her jeweled headdress towers up into the air, carefully pinned to the long curls of green hair which drift down around her shoulders like straw.

Her eyes are glowing bright gold, Lapin notes. There is no longer any pupil left to them at all. Instead, they are all monochrome, undulating yellow fire dripping from their corner and streaming down her cheeks in fiery tears. 

She stops dead in her tracks when she sees Lapin and Amethar. A smile, unnaturally wide and exceptionally cruel, burns across her face like the light of a thousand pyres. 

"Greetings _,_ heretic," the Pontifex says. "Your... _patron_ has abandoned you, has she? Well, then. In that case. Killing you should not take _too_ long." 


	10. Otherworldly Leap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Eldritch Invocation; prerequisite 9th level. You can cast Jump at will, without expending a spell slot._

With a snap of Belizabeth’s fingers, the air erupts into brilliant light.

Lapin pulls Amethar out of the way, just as a bolt of pure golden flame streaks towards the spot where the king stood and smashes into the statue of King Jadain. The statue explodes with a booming crunch, spitting stone dust and chunks of rubble out into the throne room, and it is Amethar, this time, who grabs the edge of Lapin’s sleeve and yanks him to safety, behind the next statue in line. Lapin reaches out a hand and grabs a loose rock from the rubble, mind racing. 

_How does she know I don’t have magic?_

The room is filled with haze and chalky white film. But even through the fading reverberations of the explosion, the rhythmic click of Belizabeth’s heels against the marble floor are growing louder. Lapin’s heart is beating triple-time, a sonorous drum in his chest trying to creep up through his throat. He looks around one side of the statue to the opposing row, judges the distance, winds up his arm, and throws it towards the far wall as hard as he can.

On the bright side, his aim is true. He hears the rock shatter, and the briefest inhalation as Belizabeth’s footsteps change course for a brief moment. On the downside, there is a bright starburst in Lapin’s arm as his bones finally give into the pressure and break once more, cracking along the fracture lines from when the Fairy first took over his body. He nearly bites through his lip, but manages to keep from making a sound. 

Amethar is looking at him, and Lapin wonders what the odds are that the king did not hear Belizabeth’s words in the same way he did. It’s worth a shot, at least. 

“Go, my king,” he whispers, unsheathing the second dagger and sliding it between two folds of his armor. “I can hold her off; I have spells aplenty for that.” 

“Will - will you be able to get yourself out with them?” Amethar whispers. “Look, I’d rather you not pull a second heroic sacrifice, though I do need you to know how much I appreciated the first.” 

Lapin feels a small, dark jolt of victory flood his veins. _So he didn’t understand._ Thank goodness. That will make this plan a lot easier to execute. 

“I will incapacitate her and escape through the windows,” he lies. “You head for the halls. Sir Theobald is in the dungeons; find him and _get out of here._ ”

Amethar nods once, tersely, and clamps his hands down on the manacles around his wrists to keep them from jangling. He slips from the alcove, making it to the next statue in line. Only one more between the king and the throne room door. Lapin picks up a second rock from the rubble, the weapon feeling unwieldy in his left hand, and steps out from behind the statue; Belizabeth comes into view, a shimmer of gold on the other side of the hastily clearing smog. 

His aim is a lot less true with his non-dominant hand, Lapin finds. The rock sails through the air; though he had hoped for it to connect squarely with her head, it shatters on the ground next to her. Her head snaps up, and she turns. Her eyes _burn_ , so brightly that it is dizzying to look at. 

Lapin waits just long enough for her to catch sight of him, before sprinting towards the great golden throne in the center of its marbled platform. As he runs, he can see Amethar make a break for the great double doors and throw them open, quickly squeezing through the gap. It slams behind him with a sonorous _boom._

 _Kill-box._ Another bolt of radiance shatters the window to Lapin’s right as he skids behind the throne, ducking his head down to avoid the shards of glass. Some of them still hit him, but the cuts and blood are immaterial as he huddles behind the throne, his mind racing. 

_How does she know?_

Facts click into place in his mind, connecting easily together like the pieces of a mosaic. The Pontifex's glowing eyes, not a pupil in sight. The realization he had had, minutes before his death - the Bulb and the Sugar Plum Fairy drawing power from the same place. The Sugar Plum Fairy's dying moments, as she had screamed and screamed at him - _I will grant your dearest enemy the power to destroy you._

Apparently, the fae can prove vengeful enough to grant the enemies of their enemies fucking _unlimited_ divine power in their death throes. Lapin remembers the motes of power that streamed off the Sugar Plum Fairy’s dying form, turning gold around their edges before disappearing into the ceiling of the temple. Making their way to Candia. How ironic, that the _Pontifex_ , of all people, should receive a boost of divinity from an arcane deity. 

_The Sugar Plum Fairy could have used that energy to at least_ try _and reincarnate herself, somehow. And yet, she just felt like making my life hell._

Well. At least his patron had been consistent in that character trait from beginning to end. 

“Your Bulb is a lie, Belizabeth!” he shouts around the edge of the throne. “You get your power from the same place I did, you hypocrite!” 

The bravado is mostly to incense her enough to attack - and unfortunately, it works better than he could have hoped. The Candian throne bursts into flames, the metal turning white-hot in a second, and Lapin rolls to the right, just in time to avoid being incinerated himself. 

Unfortunately, the Pontifex must have been anticipating him, because she sends two bolts of lightning lancing through the air, one on either side of the throne. Lapin feels the impact as if someone has punched him in the chest. The heat is so extreme that it shorts out his nerves, and doesn’t start to register until he is curled against the doorway on the right side of the throne, cradling his broken arm limply against his chest. _First Saccharina, now her?_ _Everyone's very intent on electrocuting me these days._

"Why would I believe a word you say?" he hears her sneer, and knows, instinctively, that she neither believes him nor cares if he could be telling the truth. Just like in the cathedral, when he proclaimed the lie of the Bulb in front of everyone. In another world, perhaps, this woman would be able to question her faith. In this one, she is as hollow as the statues that line the throne room - and even if he _wanted_ to reason with her, there would be no chance of success. 

Lapin grips the hilt of the first dagger, still clutched in his bad arm, and glances to the side. Blessedly, it seemed Belizabeth must have walked towards the window to ignite the throne. He can see her approaching through the fire, coming ever closer, and grits his teeth, steadying his aim. Then he lifts his arm up and sends the dagger spinning through the flames. 

The pain of moving his arm turns his vision black. It is only the utter terror in his veins that is keeping him conscious, but he hears a scream, and knows the dagger must have hit its target. 

_Where to run?_

His odds of even getting to the throne room door are slim to none. The window on the far side of the throne would be a better bet, but not by much. So that leaves the doorway he is huddled in front of, the one that Belizabeth herself came through. It is primarily a staircase, he knows that, with doors that open onto the three higher floors, and a final door that leads to the battlements. 

There is no time to come up with another plan, so he runs, sprinting up the stairs, his heart in his throat. Behind him, he is dimly aware of the blood from his arm leaving a sticky trail along the sandy stone, and curses himself internally, futilely. _She will follow me wherever I go._

***

The doors to the second, third, and fourth floor all bleed sound when Lapin stumbles to a stop before them- echoes of clashing blades, screams of death and pain. Luckily, the voices don’t sound like the royal family’s. _Unluckily_ , that means that Lapin risks walking directly into the midst of enemy blades, and in his current state, magic-less and injured, he is unsure if he’ll stand up to a single hit. 

So he pushes himself onward, slipping in his own blood once or twice, heading for the battlements of Castle Candy. There is no sound from below, but he has no doubt that the Pontifex is making her way up the stairs after him. Especially since she _knows_ he does not have magic. That he is helpless to fight her with the powers he once possessed. _The Sugar Plum Fairy really gave her some horrifying gifts._ Of fucking _course_ the head of the church can see straight through him now. 

The battlements, shockingly, are almost deserted when Lapin emerges onto the western wall. It is distracting enough that he burns a precious second glancing around, trying to understand where the soldiers have gone. The great siege crossbows stand unmanned, gigantic claw marks scratched into their sides. Some of them are simply piles of charred wood and ash, and Lapin’s mind searches feverishly for an explanation before he is shaken out of his reveries by the sound of footsteps behind him, ascending rapidly. 

_Focus._

Belizabeth has the radiant power of the Bulb and the Sugar Plum Fairy behind her, and a fanatical wish to see him dead. He has a dagger, and a broken arm. Somehow, he’s supposed to win this fight. It doesn’t seem particularly likely. 

_At least the royal family will have a chance,_ he reflects morosely, and the thought sends him spiraling back through the past hour. Amethar’s manacles, Theo’s farewell, the moment alone in the storage room - and the piece of coiled wire, taken from the unconscious guard’s pockets. 

_Perfect._

Lapin reaches awkwardly across his body with his left hand, pulling the wire out of his belt, uncoiling it speedily. The battlements are ruined, so perhaps….

A moment later, he spots it. There is an area by the upper right-hand corner of the battlements where stones seem to have been ripped recklessly away. A hole in the wall, five or six feet wide, gapes out over the open air of the castle moat. Lapin dashes towards it, dropping to his knees as he nears the gap. It is torture to move his right hand, but he forces himself to use it anyway for speed’s sake, tying the wire low to the ground between the left and right-hand sides of the battlement wall. A makeshift tripwire. Hopefully he can survive long enough to use it.

He has barely finished when he sees movement in the corner of his eye, and ducks back behind the corner of the wall. A blast of radiant energy sails past him and out into the nighttime sky. The Pontifex's voice echoes against the stone - even louder, now, and so vicious that it burns at his ears, trying to incinerate him through sheer force of hatred. 

"So you have chosen to run this time, heretic. As you should."

“I have a name, Belizabeth. Which I’m relatively sure you’re smart enough to remember,” Lapin calls out. _She walks with care. That’s bad. But if I can distract her for just a moment..._

The clicking of the Pontifex's heels grows closer. Lapin can hear her breathing, an incensed roar of fury, and feels a little bit of glee buoy him up, despite the circumstances. The tripwire stretches diagonally across the corner of the battlements, the gap in the stone just a few feet in front of it. Lapin looks down; nothing is visible through it but a deep, dark void. It must be at least two or three hundred feet down to the moat. Easily enough to kill anyone if they were to fall, or to be pushed. 

The Pontifex gets closer. Closer. Closer still. Lapin slips his left hand into the breastplate and pulls out the second dagger, shuts his eyes for a minute, trying to concentrate. 

When he opens them, it is just in time to see Belizabeth come into view to his right. The Pontifex stops at the very edge of the corner, just inches away from the tripwire, hovering over her golden heeled shoes.

"Any last words?" She tilts her head at Lapin, huddled up against the battlement wall, and sneers, her lip curling up. Fire drips from her eyes and burns holes in the stone at her feet. "You had such _meaningless_ ones last time."

Lapin taps his fingers on the dagger hilt thoughtfully, looks up at her, and winks. 

“No words to save me, Pontifex. Just this.” 

He throws the dagger directly at her heart. There is very little force behind the throw, really. His left hand is far less skilled, unpracticed with weapons, and the jeweled bodice of the Pontifex’s dress is sturdy enough that the blade has absolutely no chance of piercing through it. But Belizabeth’s hand shoots up to catch it anyway - reflex, impulse, her mortal instincts not entirely burned away under the divine light of her hollow god. 

Lapin leaps forward in the split second of distraction, wraps his fingers around her wrist, and throws her sharply forward. The tripwire catches at the Pontifex’s ankles. With a scream, she falls through the gap in the battlements. 

In the instant that she is suspended in midair, high above the moat, the Pontifex's hand flies out, gleaming with white-gold arcane power. Lapin feels her clutch at his armor, watches in dazed horror as her fingers find purchase on the ripped leather. 

He tries to pull back from her grip, but his right arm, broken and beaten, refuses to respond. There is an instant of realization, a second before the worst comes to pass, and it isn’t even fear that crystallizes in his heart.

Instead, it is sadness. Sadness that he was so close to...something. Freedom. Happiness. Other impossible things. 

Lapin’s feet leave the stone of the battlements behind. He tumbles silently out into the night, following Belizabeth down to her doom. The world spins around him, an endless void that he has no spells left to save himself from. Everything is dark and cold and chaotic. The Pontifex falls faster than him, spiraling down towards the water below like a shooting star crashing to earth. 

_I really thought I would survive this time._

The fear of nothingness, locked tight within his chest, is familiar and worn. An old friend, in a way. One that has been chasing him since he was a child. Lapin curses himself for the cowardice, but closes his eyes, giving in to its final impulse. 

_This time, at least, I’d rather not see my death coming._

A roar, sudden and violent, splits the world in two.

Something slams into Lapin with the force of a storm. He gasps as the air is forced from his lungs, his ribs suddenly being crushed by a great vise of pressure. Instead of falling downwards, he is moving sideways, perpendicular to the walls of the castle.

He forces his eyes open to find thick, scaly claws wrapped around his chest. Far in the distance, there is an explosion of fire on the darkened ground. as the Pontifex hits the water. 

Lapin nearly bites his tongue in half from the shock when he glances up to find a massive, serpentine face looming over his. A _red dragon_ is holding him, its eyes orange and its skin trailing smoke into the freezing night air. Princess Ruby Rocks sits atop its back, wearing a dark black cloak and holding her bow aloft.

“Oh, thank god - I found you just in time!” she yells, firing two sharp green arrows off into the darkness at some unknown assailant. A minute later, she turns back to Lapin and reaches a hand downwards, deftly pulling him up onto the dragon beside her. Lapin’s head swims as he brushes tears and ash out of his eyes, trying desperately to see the battle going on below. 

“We were not sure if you were dead or alive,” he finally chokes out, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he is not currently a pile of broken bones floating limply in the Candian moat. “I see that the latter option is correct.” 

“Oh, don’t worry.” Ruby grins, a little manically, and pats the neck of the dragon. It tilts its head up to grin back at her, a smile that shows _far_ too many teeth for Lapin's liking. “My older sister sent some help and got me out in one piece. This is Cinnamon, by the way. I’m sure he’s happy to meet you.” 

“A pleasure,” Lapin says dazedly, and spares a half second to wonder if this is, in fact, the afterlife. If so, it doesn’t seem too dismal a place, this time round. 

***

The battle, when all is said and done, is finished surprisingly quickly. 

It takes another four hours for the Bulb to rise, a pearly orange glow far up in the sky. When it finally does, the Rocks family flag is carefully hoisted up above the drawbridge by a battalion of Jawbreaker soldiers. Beside it, Lapin notes, the flag of House Frostwhip is flown, its mint-green edges fluttering in the breeze. He breathes a soft sigh of relief, remembering the last few moments of combat - where Saccharina and Jet, bloodied and exhausted, had simply stood and stared at each other in the middle of the battlefield, their weapons still unsheathed, their eyes calculating and icy cold. 

_In another world…_

But thankfully, that world is not this one. And Lapin is all too glad to leave his thought unfinished.

He wanders through the tents of the wounded for most of the morning, aiding in any way he can. There is a painful twinge at the back of his mind every time that one of the Candian or Jawbreaker soldiers turns to him, clearly expecting divine magic, and has to settle for bandages and compresses instead. But he ignores it and pushes through, helping combatant after combatant to heal. As the Bulb sinks a little lower in the sky, Cumulous appears like a cotton-candy ghost in the corner of the medical tent, bearing a list of the tallied dead. Lapin feels a little guilty at the relief that pours through his veins as he reads it, simply because all those he knows and loves are safe and accounted for. Many dead, on both sides of the fight - but the royal family has all survived. Calroy Cruller’s name tops the list of the enemy combatants. Below it, the Pontifex’s name is carefully etched, and then Sir Keradin Deeproot’s. 

_Good,_ Lapin thinks, and hands the list back to Cumulous brusquely. 

The next few days pass in a watercolor blur - councils, reunions, rebuilding. Lapin watches Saccharina Frostwhip warily from the other side of the room as the Rocks family and their allies discuss how to proceed with the future of Candia. At first, he is not quite sure what to make of the woman, but her theories seem sound. Her understanding of the arcane potential of Candia proves specific enough that if he didn’t know better, he would say Lazuli had taught her personally.

 _Perhaps this is a new era._ The Concord is fragile - it’s a miracle that any of the other countries seem interested in maintaining it at all, frankly - but the emergence of Saccharina seems to be shifting Amethar into position as the next Concordant Emperor. It will take a few years, admittedly, for the power shifts to stabilize. But all in all, there’s a chance that it might succeed. 

_How’s that for optimism, Theo?_ Lapin thinks, and smirks slightly at the knight from across the room. 

***

Two weeks after the battle, Lapin’s wounds have almost entirely healed, and a storm is brewing far off in the distance, speeding its way past the Cola River and approaching across the bustling bridge from Dulcington. He sits on the battlements of Castle Candy and watches it, idly flipping through a book stolen from the library room filled with Lazuli’s arcane research. The clouds are dark thunderheads, towering up into the sky. He is entranced enough by their power that footsteps on the nearby stone startle him slightly, making him slam the book closed with a thud. 

“So this is where you threw the Pontifex from,” Theo says, sitting down beside him. The Lord Commander wears a new set of armor, thought the Candian crest is still etched into the metal. It seems some things rarely change. 

“ _Threw_ is a generous adjective, Sir Theobald. But yes, I suppose so.” Lapin stares at the corner of the wall, where the sandy stone of the battlements has been carefully repaired by the monks of the Spinning Star. “It was a rather last-ditch plan, I must admit.” 

“Well. Congratulations on surviving. I must say, I’m rather glad you did.”

“Thank you,” Lapin responds, and memories of the cathedral wash across his mind like a wave. But the recollections no longer hurt, no longer feel like drowning. Instead, they simply feel...bright. A memory of a time long past, and an abundance of stubborn love for the Rocks family that did a fair bit to bring him back to life. “I’m glad it worked out this time.” 

“What are you reading?” Theo asks, and motions idly to the book Lapin holds on his lap. “Something just for fun, or is this a project of yours?”

In response, Lapin grins at Theo, puts his right hand out, and clenches it into a fist. A shimmering disk of blue energy spins into existence around his hand, abjurative magic pulsing through the air. 

He flicks his fingers, and the disk spirals up above their heads, just as a crack of thunder rings out above the castle, and it finally starts to rain in earnest. The raindrops splash against the magical ward, fizzling out into nothingness before they can drench him or the knight he is sitting beside. 

“I’ve been learning,” Lapin says, and the grin stays on his face. It is an odd feeling, but not one that he particularly dislikes, especially when Theo matches it with one of his own. "A bit of magic on my own terms, this time." 

The rain beats down dourly on the arcane disk above their heads - but for once, Lapin realizes, the storm does not chill his bones with cold. Life, on the whole, is warmer than he knew it could be. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> God, I love Lapin. And I love dramatic, dismal eldritch horror, with lots of angst, surprising notes of romance, and ultimately hopeful endings. So this fic was an absolute pleasure to write - a behemoth of work, the longest fic I've ever done and maybe the longest project I've completed yet, but I don't regret a thing. There's lots of fun details, notes, and references sprinkled throughout. I hope that it's enjoyable to read, and if you liked it, all comments are always welcomed and appreciated more than I can ever say. 
> 
> Find me on tumblr @jadeand quartzes!


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